Fatal Beauty

by Burl Barer

  “I had a conversation with Rhonda in Houston,” recalled Robert Dillon, “and she told me the same thing, that things didn’t happen the way she initially said they did. That is the full extent of any known official claim—later retracted—that Jimmy Joste ever lifted a finger to Rhonda Glover.”

  “Jimmy was a great guy with a lot of class,” said Danny Davis. “Everyone liked him and enjoyed being with him, until he started getting into drugs with her. I didn’t see him at that time, as he was up in Austin, and was pretty much isolating himself from his old friends. He would get away from her, pull himself together, and be the old Jimmy.”

  “Why would someone like Jimmy be head over heels in love with a whirlwind like Rhonda Glover?” asked Rocky Navarro rhetorically. “Well, if you knew Jimmy Joste, you would understand completely. According to Jimmy, she was incredible in bed. She had other qualities, I’m sure. She always was a real go-getter.”

  4

  “Rhonda came from an excellent family,” said Danny Davis, a friend of Jimmy Joste’s since childhood. “Both her mother and father are good people. Both of them cared deeply for her, and even though she was always a handful, they really did their best by her. ”

  As a young girl, Rhonda Glover was adventurous and athletic. She played baseball and other sports, and placed fourteenth in the state of Texas for barrel racing, a rodeo event.

  “I grew up in rodeo,” said Rhonda Glover. “I was only fourteen years old when I won about twenty thousand dollars from competing in rodeo events. I also had a colt that I was planning to take to the World Quarter Horse Show, as well as the Arkansas Futurity. She had wobblers disease and was crippled. I was devastated by this. I never dreamed that I would be anything but a rodeo world champion cowgirl.”

  “Rodeo is the state sport of Texas,” confirmed journalist Steven Long, owner and editor of Horseback Magazine, “but rodeo is more than a sport here. It is an integral aspect of Texas identity and culture, and it is also a multimillion-dollar enterprise.”

  Texas gave birth to cowboy legend. For Rhonda Glover, and innumerable other Texans, that legend lives in rodeo. Houston’s rodeo culture is a unique cross between agricultural heritage and high society, where the social climax of the rodeo season is the Junior Market Steer Auction.

  “Take one look at the folks bidding on those steers,” remarked Steven Long, “and you’ll get an eyeful of people with a wallet full. You see men wearing cowboy boots crafted from ostrich and alligator, women bedecked in diamond-studded Western wear, and they are bidding big bucks for well-bred livestock. These folks aren’t just buying a steer. They are funding an educational scholarship, and they know it.”

  Glover’s $20,000 income from a rodeo event is easily trumped by the monetary rewards of even younger participants at the Junior Market Steer Auction. A champion steer recently fetched a handsome $300,000. The twelve-year-old owner received $85,000.

  “Texas rodeo culture embraces events that combine publicity, philanthropy and status,” said Rhonda Glover, proud of her past association and competition. “This is the stuff that Houston is famous for,” she said, “rodeo, high society, charity, fashion, and BBQ. I grew up in that world, and I loved it.”

  Rhonda Glover was born in the Heights Hospital on July 26, 1966. “That’s the same birthday as Mick Jagger and Sandra Bullock,” explained Rhonda Glover. “I was born to twenty-year-old parents. My mom worked as a secretary at SW life insurance, and my dad was a parts man at Osmond Apple Ford in Pasadena. My dad raced motorcycles, and did demolition derbies. My parents met at a drive-in movie. My dad was saved from going to Vietnam due to my mom being pregnant with me. I always told him he owed me big-time. I guess now that I am in this mess, he has the opportunity for paybacks. ”

  Friend and foe alike have always regarded Rhonda Glover as highly erratic. Even former high-school classmates recalled her as being both friend and enemy, depending upon nonspecific variables. “Yes, that’s the way she was,” confirmed a former classmate. “She was my friend. She would sleep over and stuff, but then she could just turn on you and not be a friend, and then back to being a friend again, depending on her mood. Sometimes it would throw you really off-guard because you didn’t know where you stood with her.”

  The pattern of Glover shifting alliances was one she readily acknowledged, and offered the example of her forming a temporary friendship with a girl with whom she had long-standing problems. “She was mean as a rattlesnake,” said Glover. “She and her friends tormented me at school. I thought maybe if I became her friend, things would be different. I don’t know what in the world I was thinking. At one point she tried to implicate me in the theft of a guy’s rodeo jacket, and later jumped me in a parking lot. We had quite a falling-out, that’s for sure. My daddy always said that success was the best revenge. So I forgave her and concentrated on myself. Years later, when we were adults, I ran into her. I was driving a Cadillac and waved at her as I drove by. Those old school days were over, and [I] didn’t hold a grudge.”

  Rhonda Glover grew up near a town called the Woodlands, and went to McCullough High School. “I was on the track team in junior high, and played first-chair clarinet until high school. After that, I had to quit the marching band, because I rodeoed every single weekend and could not make the games.”

  Glover’s life experiences as a teenager were those of accomplishment, adventure and reward. For her sixteenth birthday Rhonda’s mother gave her an all-expense-paid trip to London, England. “While I was there, I fell madly in love with a young Iraqi named Faris Al Sadi,” recalled Glover. “I wanted to marry him, and told Mom of our plans. She encouraged me to come home so she could help me plan the wedding.” On the way home from the airport, Rhonda’s mother asked to see her daughter’s passport. “She said she wanted to look at it because she had never taken a good look at one before. She grabbed and then stuck it between the driver’s seat and the door, refusing to give it back. She had no intention of planning my wedding. Instead, she took my passport and gave me a lecture about how much I would miss if I moved away and got married at such a young age.”

  Glover’s mother was certainly acting in her daughter’s best interest, but young Rhonda perceived the passport snatching as a dishonest act of interference and control. This episode seemingly set a template for the future relationship of Rhonda Glover and her mother.

  “Rhonda always blamed her mother for things that didn’t work out,” confirmed Patti Swenson, a longtime Austin acquaintance. According to Swenson, Rhonda Glover regarded her mother’s actions as unsympathetic, controlling and ill-intentioned. “In retrospect, her mother was always trying to protect her, look out for her and help her. Rhonda never saw things that way.”

  Glover also attended Klein High School, located in Klein, a community in unincorporated Harris County, Texas, about a thirty-minute drive from downtown Houston. “I won grand champion in 1981 at Klein High School,” she stated proudly. “I grew up with friends whose fathers were in the oil business. My grandfather ran Scurlock Oil Trucking for twenty-five years. ”

  Glover credited founder Eddy C. Scurlock with giving her a piece of life-changing advice. “He caught me red-handed riding one of his horses without permission. Instead of reading me the riot act, he told me that I wouldn’t get anywhere in life unless I was willing to take risks. I never forgot that, and I’ve always been willing to take risks.” Rhonda was friends with the most popular boys in school, and the most beautiful girls. “I had the best of both worlds, as I knew just about everyone. Having been beat up a lot, I got a bad attitude a few times, and stood up for myself. In reality I was never a person who enjoyed arguing,” she insisted, “or especially being hit in the face. ”

  When she was eighteen, Rhonda Glover’s parents divorced. Refusing to play favorites, she spent time with both of them. She went on to compete on the Texas beauty circuit in pageants, such as Miss Houston. “I did well as Miss Houston, and was invited to compete at Miss Texas USA in San Antonio,” recalled G
lover.

  Texas beauties often have show business aspirations, and Rhonda Glover was no exception. She and her friend LeeAnne Locken were featured as eye candy in the 1989 Adam Sandler film, Going Overboard: The Unsinkable Shekky Moskowitz. The two attractive women made many contacts in Hollywood, but only Locken pursued a film career.

  “LeeAnne did very well for herself,” said Glover, “but I was homesick and wanted to go back to my boyfriend in Texas. He was the jealous and controlling type, and there was pressure to return.

  “I went back to Houston, and one day I was working out at the gym, and met a great-looking guy on the StairMaster next to me. His line was, ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’ I had a lot of guys say that, because I had done the Miss Rockwear competition, and they sold the video to cable TV. They played it over and over, and I wore a silver leather bikini. The guy turns out to be a dentist who had just graduated dental school. He was so handsome and was so sweet to me.”

  The dentist who had just graduated from dental school was Dr. John Krell, D.D.S., a native Houstonian. He came from a family of four members who became dentists, so it was only natural that he pursued a degree in dentistry.

  According to Glover, her friendship with the dentist drove her boyfriend over the edge. “My so-called boyfriend was a jerk in all senses of the word,” said Rhonda of the jealous beau. “He went out of his way to stand me up, go on vacations with his friends and never tell me where he was going, hang out at a place where the girls served food in lingerie and, basically, was a loser. Dr. John Krell, D.D.S., proved what true love was to me. He and I were at the pool one day lounging around in the sun, and we were talking about how much it would cost me to start my own business. I was so confident that I could make money for myself. I figured that it would cost me thirteen hundred dollars to get started. Krell showed up one morning at my apartment with thirteen roses and thirteen 100-dollar bills. He gave me a card that I have kept all these years. It said, I believe in you and love you. Go make it happen. ”

  Overcome with emotion, Rhonda Glover broke into tears. “I couldn’t believe it was coming true. What a great man he is. I don’t think either one of us was over our previous relationships enough to be committed. I saw John, Dr. Krell, D.D.S., about eight months before my ‘incident.’ He has the most prestigious office and the best staff. I am very proud of him and his accomplishments. He saw me and my son as patients. I think back and realize that he was one of those that I let get away. I am glad he is happy and married.”

  Shortly after John Krell and Rhonda Glover “broke up” was when she met James Joste. “Beverly Bogle Sanders and I were invited to a black-tie event for the Cancer Society,” Glover remembered. “Dr. Michael Ecklund, D.D.S., was one of the hosts. It was held at Houston City Club, next to Maxim’s in Green-way Plaza. We had champagne and caviar and a wonderful buffet. We were stuffed and just relaxing and talking with a few friends, and here comes Jimmy. He introduced himself to me and said, ‘Someone just told me that you were Miss River Oaks USA, and I think I saw you on TV that year.’ I said, ‘Oh, really? Do you make it a habit to watch young girls in beauty pageants? What are you, some talent scout or agent?’ He says, ‘Well, I just scouted you out, didn’t I?’ I was not impressed much, especially when his friends told me that he already had a Rhonda at home, but that she was in Europe. I asked Jimmy why she was there for such a long time. Was she a flight attendant or something? He said, ‘No, I get sick of her asking for money, so I send her away with her friends for a while.’ Then his friends chimed in and said, ‘You can be the Rhonda in Texas, and she can be the one out there in Europe.’ I asked Jimmy how long he had been with this other Rhonda, and he said it was eight long years, and he was sick of it.

  “I always did like smart guys,” said Rhonda, “especially smart and funny guys. Jimmy was both smart and funny.”

  Jimmy Joste kept asking Rhonda Glover and her friend if they wanted to join him for dinner, but they declined his offer. “I wasn’t about to go off with a man who lived with another woman for eight years,” said Glover. “After all, that is what happened to so many of my friends, where they had caught their boyfriends cheating, and it just made no sense to me.

  “After that, I ended up seeing Jimmy Joste everywhere. I was out with Kay and Daniel Drohr. He drove a Bentley, and the three of us went to dinner at Tony’s Restaurant that evening. It was Lucho Florez’s birthday and he was having a party at his house on San Felipe and invited us over. I was wearing summer wool, and so was Jimmy Joste when we happened to run into each other at Lucho’s party.” Lucho Florez, now retired to Peru, remembered those days with fondness, and confirmed Rhonda’s story.

  According to Glover, Kay and Daniel “Danny” Drohr got into a fight and left her there. “Jimmy drove me home,” she recalled. “We ended up at a home in River Oaks owned by John Howenstein, the man who invented Teddy Ruxpin, the talking bear.”

  In Rhonda Glover’s life narrative, names drop faster than quarters in a Las Vegas slot machine. Howenstein did not invent Teddy Ruxpin. He was, however, a director of Worlds of Wonder (WoW), a company formed in 1985 by Donald Kingsborough to manufacture and distribute the Teddy Ruxpin product line of animated toy bears.

  Rhonda was impressed by success, and she wanted others to be impressed by her success, and that of her friends. When she began dating Jimmy Joste, she knew he was a high roller, although his fortunes often shifted wildly.

  Fred Wolfson mused on Joste’s financial situation. “Sometimes he was on top of the market. Other times he was behind the eight ball. Eventually, according to Rhonda, he was spending money on eight-balls. Not everything that glitters is gold. Sometimes what glitters is cocaine. Sometimes gold diggers get the two confused.”

  While some portray Rhonda Glover as a gold digger, her attorney, Joe James Sawyer, often called James or Jim, and her young son say that she had money in her own right. Her 1998 income tax return showed an adjusted gross income of $60,448. According to Glover, that was a bad year. “Take a look at my other income tax statements and you will see that I was bringing in over four hundred thousand a year.”

  “Nonsense,” insisted Danny Davis. “She never made that kind of money on her own, not in a million years.”

  Travis County ADA Bryan Case also found Glover’s assertion absurd. “If there were any other tax returns validating that claim, they would exist. And the reason you don’t see those tax returns is because there are none. They don’t exist.”

  Glover, Case insisted, didn’t make enough profit to have taxable income. Rhonda, of course, insisted that simply wasn’t true. “I didn’t need Jimmy’s money,” she said. “I didn’t need it at all. There was no reason for me to need it. I have always paid my way. I have always worked and made money.”

  The business Rhonda Glover ran in 1998 and 1999 was Insurance Resource Group (IRG), a recruiting company for insurance companies. Kimberlee “Kim” Waters was Glover’s employee at IRG for two months.

  “I hardly ever saw her,” said Waters. “She didn’t come in a lot. She just wouldn’t show up. Not only did I not see a lot of cash or money come into the business during the time I worked there, I had problems getting paid myself by Ms. Glover.”

  In December, as the happy holiday season approached, Waters’s little girl was taken ill. “I called Rhonda and told her that I couldn’t come to work that day because of a sick child. To my surprise, she became very angry with me.”

  “You fucking bitch! “ screamed Rhonda. “I’m going to kill both you and your daughter!”

  Threatening the life of a four-year-old, even in hyperbole, is disconcerting to any caring parent. “I was even more scared when Rhonda drove over to my house and began banging on the door,” recalled Waters. “She banged on the front, and then she ran around and banged on the back. Both the front and the back are glass, with the exception of the door. She banged on the door, and she banged on the glass.”

  Calling the police, Waters and her little girl huddled insi
de, while Glover huffed and puffed, banging on the house and yelling obscenities. “The police showed up, and they talked to Rhonda in the driveway. Then they came and talked to me. I wanted them to file a report on the incident, but they didn’t. I wasn’t happy at all about it. Later, Rhonda tried to get me to come back to work for her, but I refused. She even called my husband, and I didn’t feel good about that either. ”

  If Rhonda Glover’s interpersonal and business skills were exemplified by that particular incident, lack of financial success would not be surprising. Glover, however, maintained the assertion—and the belief—that she always made money from rodeo in her childhood, and a variety of jobs in adulthood.

  “For reasons unexplained,” said her attorney, Joe James Sawyer, “she was always drawn back to Jimmy Joste.”

  “I can explain what drew her back to Jimmy,” said Rocky Navarro. “Money. Jimmy was spending at least ten thousand dollars a month on her. That kind of money would draw almost anyone. Sure, they argued almost all the time, but Jimmy’s money and extreme generosity, plus his calm and centered attitude, was something she never wanted to lose.”

  “They argued constantly,” confirmed Charles Glover, Rhonda’s father. “I liked Jimmy, and I sat down and had a heart-to-heart talk with him back in 1995. He and Rhonda had just had another one of their arguments. I actually asked him and Rhonda both to take some time and get away from each other because they were not good for each other. They were always arguing and fighting. I asked him at that time, ‘Please take your checkbook and leave.’ I told him that I believed that leaving was the best thing he could do for both of them.”