For months, residents in parts of Central Texas were dealing with something nobody expects to find near their driveway or mailbox: dead, headless deer showing up in neighborhoods, sometimes with crossbow bolts left behind in front yards and on porches. Texas Game Wardens say that ugly pattern is what ultimately helped them build a case that now includes 74 criminal charges against a New Braunfels man.
The details come from the source post, which describes an 11-month investigation spanning Comal, Hays, and Bexar counties. Investigators allege 55-year-old Darrell Maguire illegally killed at least 13 white-tailed bucks between fall 2024 and late summer 2025, often taking only the heads and leaving the carcasses behind.
A neighborhood problem that didn’t look like “hunting season”
Texas is full of deer, and most folks are used to seeing them at the edge of a neighborhood or along a fence line. What game wardens describe here is different: buck carcasses dumped where families live, and evidence of shots taken in places you’d normally associate with kids playing outside and people walking dogs.
Wardens say several of the alleged poaching incidents happened in residential neighborhoods in Comal and Hays counties. In those areas, they recovered crossbow bolts from front yards and porches—details that make the case feel less like a rural trespass issue and more like a direct public-safety concern for anyone living nearby.
Investigators say the pattern was crossbow shots from a vehicle
According to Texas Parks and Wildlife Department investigators, Maguire often used a crossbow to shoot deer from his vehicle. Wardens allege he removed only the heads and left the rest of the animals to rot…