Interview:
Deborah S. Esquenazi,
director,
"Night in West Texas"
Directed by Austin-based documentary filmmaker Deborah S. Esquenazi, Night in West Texas follows the legal campaign by the Innocence Project of Texas to seek exoneration for the repressed gay Apache man convicted of a brutal 1981 murder committed in the oil town of Odessa. Closeted Catholic priest Father Patrick Ryan was found dead in an Odessa motel room in December 1981. A year later, New Mexico native and unemployed oil worker James Harry Reyos—who befriended Ryan a few weeks before his murder—called 911 and falsely confessed in a guilt-ridden, drunken state to the crime. Despite evidence that proved his innocence, Reyos was convicted of Ryan’s murder and sentenced to 38 years in prison. Released for good behavior in 1995, Reyos returned to prison multiple times for parole violation before being confined to transitional housing in Austin in 2012. Deborah S. Esquenazi’s documentary finds Reyos and the Innocence Project of Texas preparing for an exoneration hearing, armed with evidence previously considered destroy and with the full support of the Odessa Police Department and the Ector County District Attorney’s Office. Night in West Texas will screen at 6:15 p.m. Oct. 18 at the Galaxy Theaters Austin during Prism 38: aGLIFF’s Annual LGBTQ+ Film Festival. Austin-based director Deborah S. Esquenazi previously directed the documentaries Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four and Isaiah's Children.
Aired: Oct. 15, 2025. Web sites: https://www.nightinwesttexas.com/ https://www.agliff.org/prism-38 |
|