REDFORD — Last month, the Dallas-based Local Chapter, LLC filed an appeal in El Paso’s Eighth Circuit in a dispute over a two-acre tract of land in Redford where a Presidio teen was shot by a soldier on a drug interdiction mission patrolling the border in 1997.
The company had sued to gain access to land purchased under its name, but Pecos attorney Bill Weinacht maintained it belonged to him and was used jointly with the family of Esequiel Hernandez, Jr. as a memorial. Judge Eugenia Wright had ruled in Weinacht’s favor in December, but the two parties will face off in a higher court over the next few months as they continue to probe the intricacies of adverse possession law in Texas.
The tract at issue doesn’t have much on it, save for a few creosote bushes, a crumbling ruin from the Mexican Revolution and a wrought iron cross. That cross marks the spot where Esequiel Hernandez Jr. was shot and killed by a Marine patrolling the border in May of 1997. Hernandez’s killer — Corporal Clemente Bañuelos — was never convicted, but his family received a $2 million payout from the federal government in a wrongful death suit.
That wasn’t the last time the teenager’s name would be invoked in a courtroom. The simple white cross has become the crux of a complex suit over the property it sits on, begging the question of whether its quiet vigil over the valley is enough to legally claim that the property has been actively used over the past 20 years.
The Local Chapter is owned by Baxter and Amber Box, who use the company as a vehicle to purchase and pass down land to their kids. In 2011, the couple launched RewardStyle, a website that helped creators monetize blog posts — a concept that has since spiraled into the multi-billion dollar “influencer” industry that fuels brand deals around the world.
In the fall of 2019, the Local Chapter purchased a property just over 474 acres on the far eastern fringe of Redford that spans from the river to the edge of Big Bend Ranch State Park. Southern Presidio County is notorious for dodgy surveys and messy chains of title, and this property is no exception — the Boxes quickly realized that other people thought they owned pieces of the land they’d just bought.
The two acres marked by the cross were among the contested areas of overlap. In December 2019, legal counsel for the Boxes reached out to Weinacht, offering cash if all parties involved could skirt around potential legal issues.
Weinacht didn’t bite, and in August of 2023, the couple filed suit.
In court filings, Weinacht maintains that he only visits the property a few times a year, but that his own life’s story is deeply intertwined with the land — he represented the Hernandez family in court when they won their case against the government, and later purchased the property so that they could maintain it as a memorial.
The two parties maintain roughly the same timeline for about 50 years. In 1905, the State of Texas granted the land to early settler F.J. Alvarado, and it passed on to his son, C.J., in 1937. Alvarado then sold the property to a W.A. Glasscock in 1943. In 1949, Glasscock transferred the deed to a portion of the property — which includes the two acres at the center of the suit — to Trinidad Grado Sr.
The trouble began when Glasscock used the land to back a debt from a man named George Pugh. Glasscock defaulted on his debt, and in 1954, Pugh called on the county to foreclose on the property, dragging Glasscock, Grado and other parties that had been sold pieces of the contested land into court. The county clerk issued an order of sale, and in November of that year the Presidio County sheriff transferred the deed to Pugh.
In November 1954, the timeline split. Pugh sold the land to a man named J.T. Paulsel, who died in 1960 and transferred the title to his heirs — who would go on to sell the land to the Local Chapter decades later.
Meanwhile, Grado Sr. — who could not speak or read English — continued paying taxes on the property, and later transferred it to his son, Trinidad Grado Jr.
Grado Jr. did not live on the property, but by all accounts was upset after Hernandez’s death in 1997, when his land was swarmed by lawyers, journalists and mourners. “There was literally a storm of activity on the property and extensive publicity about the property in Redford and not one person ever showed up or claimed they owned the property except Trinidad Grado, Jr,” Weinacht explains in his motion for summary judgment, filed in September 2024.
Tensions over the use of the property festered for years, and in 2005, Weinacht purchased the two-acre tract from Grado Jr. and authorized the Hernandez family to watch over and maintain the space as a memorial.
Weinacht says that’s how he’s always viewed the property — as a memorial. In 2017, he even argued before the Presidio County Appraisal District that the property’s value of $1800 shouldn’t be raised because it is solely intended to serve as a place for contemplation and commemoration.
Filings suggest that the Boxes share Weinacht’s sentiment that that’s the “highest and best use” of the land. “I think it’s an important moment to commemorate,” Baxter Box said on the stand.
In an interview with the The Sentinel in November 2023, Box said that he has a deep appreciation for the history of the area and was drawn to the Redford property because of its small role in the Mexican Revolution. The ruins of U.S. Cavalry barracks sit on one side of the road, and the ruin on the contested two acres served as officers quarters — it’s rumored that General Pershing once stayed there.
Throughout the course of the suit, Weinacht has claimed that the land is his via adverse possession. In Texas, folks can claim adverse possession of land they pay taxes on and “cultivate, use or enjoy” under “a duly registered deed.” Adverse possession laws carry 5, 10 and 25-year statutes of limitations — each with requirements Weinacht argues that he’s met several times over.
Counsel for the Local Chapter disagrees that the presence of the cross is enough to satisfy “open and notorious” use of the property. “The cross serves a discrete — albeit symbolic and significant — purpose, once a year, on a small, discrete portion of the property to a limited number of people,” Attorney Robert Soza wrote in a motion for summary judgment filed on the same day as Weinacht’s.
Apart from that, they countered that hardly anybody — let alone Weinacht — ever used the property. A neighbor testified that he’d only ever seen “sunset chasers and pitaya hunters” hop the fence.
Time will tell if the appeals court agrees with Judge Wright’s interpretation of adverse possession law. Until then, Weinacht said he’s prepared to continue fighting. “It’s not for the money,” he said of the suit, which could net up to a quarter million — a figure he maintains would hardly cover another attorney’s time and effort. “It’s for the principle.”
Representatives for the Local Chapter did not respond to a request for comment by press time.