A former Brazos Valley resident is back behind bars after years of making threats to KBTX, its staff, local law enforcement and other members of the community.
Jason Bewley, 47, was arrested in late June in North Carolina. Federal authorities tracked him down for making threats against KBTX. For the better part of a decade, Bewley has continued his brutal harassment on a newsroom that is deeply committed to serving the Brazos Valley.
You may remember seeing Bewley's face before. In 2008, he was arrested after throwing a cinder block into a back door at KBTX and into the front windshield of a live van. He started harassing station employees and, over the years, that harassment hasn't stopped.
Agents with the FBI found and arrested Bewley in North Carolina in June for calling and emailing threats against KBTX General Manager Mike Wright and station staff. His threats also extended to Brazos Valley law enforcement and community members.
A federal indictment details threats to split open Wright's skull, rape a staff member and burn KBTX "to the ground."
Its been commonplace for years at KBTX for Bewley to call, sometimes hundreds of times in a row, with obscenity-laced tirades threatening to rape and murder newsroom team members. He also sent emails, sometimes to hundreds of people, accusing KBTX of recording Brazos Valley residents through their televisions.
Those emails went so far as to target the universities KBTX staff attended, alleging to professors and deans that their former students had, among other disgusting charges, delved into producing illegal pornography. Bewley also often emailed the colleges where local law enforcement leaders attended, claiming collusion on the part of the public servants and KBTX.
For the first time, Bewley is set to face a judge district on Friday in Houston and answer for nearly a decade of threats and harassment on our community. He's currently in jail in North Carolina awaiting extradition to Texas.
This has, often, been a scary and frustrating time for the staff and alumni of KBTX. We're extremely grateful for the tireless work that law enforcement has done in keeping our staff safe and tracking Bewley down.