The Murder of Samuel Olson

Being born and raised in the Houston area, when I heard about this case, it caught my attention immediately. Being in law school and wanting to do criminal law also brought it to my attention. I followed everything about it that could possibly be known.

If you haven't heard of this case, let me give you an overview. What she did to this baby is horrible. And while there have been children killed in far more sadistic ways, it doesn't lessen what this little boy went through.

I first heard about this case from the YouTube channel The Behavior Panel. (For those of you interested in reading and learning about body language analysis, I highly recommend this channel. It's great and extremely informative.) This episode shows the media interview between the father and Balboa, as well as the father's mother. Even if you know nothing about body language, you can watch her part of the interview and know that she was guilty beyond any reasonable doubt.

Now this is still an ongoing case. Charges have been brought up on Balboa, but there hasn't been anything more than the preliminary hearing where the charges were brought up.

This past summer, in June, Theresa Balboa killed her boy friend's five-year-old son Samuel by way of blunt-force trauma while inside her apartment in the southeast area of Houston.

She placed the boy's body in the bathtub at her apartment and enlisted the help of her room mate in disposing of the body.

While they planned this, going to the local Wal-Mart and bought...

One large plastic tote. Black trash bags. Duct tape.

And the fact that they went to a local store and bought all the items from the same store...shows just how...intellectually challenged they are

For two days they kept this baby's body in the bathtub before putting him in the tote and renting an outdoor storage unit. Now...for those of you unfamiliar with Houston summers...it's well into the 100-110 degree marks by June with a humidity level that's closer to 1000 than 100 percent.

At some point they enlisted the help of another friend with the (second) transportation of his body.

From Houston they take the tote with Samuel's body in it and drove close to 150 odd miles to Jasper, Texas and checked into a little motel. (And one that I have stayed at while in Jasper)

This is when Crime Stoppers got an anonymous tip (and my conjecture is that is was from the friend that drove to Jasper) and the Jasper PD moved in. There they discovered the remains of Samuel in the tote.

In July she was charged in a Houston court with capital murder. Which is a death penalty charge. And Texans, y'all...we really don't take well to baby killers.

I have no doubt that she'll get the death penalty and I will be following this case closely as more comes out on it. The legal world cares nothing of time and so far as I can find, there has not been a trail set on the charges brought against Theresa Balboa or her two accomplices.

It could be a year or more, especially with Covid, before anything more happens with this trial. Hopefully it won't take that long.

Check out the episode of The Behavior Panel with this case and see her interview from the news...the guys that do the show are amazing and the things you learn are amazing. I highly suggest checking out their channel.

There will be more to come on this case as it develops. I just don't know how long that's going to take.