"Maverick Millionaire" a victim of murder-4-hire, claims indictment

The man called a "Maverick Millionaire" by the Houston paper was killed in a murder-for-hire plot, according to an indictment down at the courthouse in Angleton.

The Chron didn't have the story. The local paper in Clute did. And the local paper in Clute no longer refers to the late George Smith Jr. as a "millionaire," even though he was a well-known figure in Surfside, where he sometimes ruffled feathers at City Hall ... so maybe he wasn't a millionaire but just a regular hard-working Surfsider, as his daughter said in a online comment to the Houston paper.

If and when the Houston paper catches up to the Clute paper on the story, we'll check to see if they backtrack on the "Maverick MIllionaire" angle.

Whatever his socioeconomic status, George Smith Jr. remains dead.

Dylan James Laughrey, 24, was arrested and booked at the Brazoria County Detention Center on Thursday, where he remained on $500,000 bond, District Attorney Jeri Yenne said.

Laughrey is accused of being hired to kill George Smith, 53, who was found dead Aug. 7 on a beach 5 miles east of the Surfside Bridge. Preliminary autopsy reports indicated Smith died from blunt force trauma to the head. [link]

So now we'll wait and see if the authorities can persuade Mr. Laughrey to tell them who hired him to beat George to death.

In the local and Houston media there seems to be some confusion as to the marital status of George and his wife, though one of their offspring commented somewhere that they weren't divorced, as has been reported.

And it'd be nice to know if George was a millionaire or not, too, cause if he wasn't, we haven't noticed any corrections in the papers, and if he was, that might shed some light on a motive -- maybe.

That's all we have to say on the matter for now.