deadly encounters

Harrowing tale of Austin judge's attempted murder spotlighted on 48 Hours

In a CBS interview, Austin judge Julie Kocurek recounts the night a gunman almost took her life.

Photo courtesy of CBS News

In an interview with 48 Hours airing April 13 on CBS, Travis County State District Judge Julie Kocurek shares the story of the 2015 murder plot that was supposed to kill her.

It was an ordinary Friday night when Kocurek and her teenage son, Will, were heading home from a football game. After arriving at the security gate outside their house, the two noted a strangely placed leaf bag. When Will stepped out of the car to remove it, a man dressed in all black advanced upon them and fired his gun numerous times into the driver's side window.

“I scooted down as far as I could in the seat. And I protected my head with my arm and my hand," Kocurek recounts in her 48 Hours interview, according to a release. “I can remember thinking, ‘I am going to die in front of my own son.’” In the hospital, Kocurek learned she had sustained wounds from shattered glass, shrapnel from the impact of the bullets, and lost a finger.

The three weeks before the shooting, the Travis County District Attorney's Office had learned of a threat made against a judge, but the office didn't consider it credible. The assailant was later identified as Chimine Onyeri, a Houston man who had appeared in Kocurek's courtroom and plotted the attack to prevent her from sentencing him to prison for a probation violation. He was sentenced in 2018 to life in prison.

After months of recovery, Kocurek returned to the bench in 2016 and began advocating for safer courtrooms and for all threats made against judges to be thoroughly investigated.

In 2017, the Texas Legislature passed the Judge Julie Kocurek Judicial and Courthouse Security Act of 2017. The new law established a court security division within the state's Office of Court Administration, required court security personnel to have certain training, and asked local judges to create court security committees. The law also expanded privacies for judges and their spouses while allowing police officers to serve as personal security to judges.

Learn Kocurek's full story when 48 Hours' newest episode, "Live to Tell: The Vendetta," airs at 9 pm CT. Watch the preview here.

families inspiration interview media texas tv hot-headlines city-news-roundup

income analysis

Texas families need to make this much money for one parent to stay home

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

With costs to raise a child soaring over $20,000 a year in Texas, some households might decide to have one parent work while the other stays at home to raise their child.

As the cost of raising a child balloons in major cities like Houston, many families are weighing the choice between paying for child care or having one parent stay home full-time.

A recent analysis from SmartAsset determined the minimum income one parent needs to earn to support their partner staying at home to raise one child in all 50 states. In Texas — not just Houston — that amount is just under $75,000.

The study used the MIT Living Wage Calculator to compare the annual living wages needed for a household with two working adults and one child, and a household with one working adult, a stay-at-home parent, and one child. The study also calculated how much it would cost to raise a child with two working parents based on factors such as "food, housing, childcare, healthcare, transportation, incremental income taxes and other necessities."

A Texas household with one working parent would need to earn $74,734 a year to support a stay-at-home partner and a child, the report found. If two parents worked in the household, necessitating some additional costs like childcare and transportation, it would require an additional $10,504 in annual income to raise their child.

SmartAsset said the cost to raise a child in Texas in a two-working-parent household adds up to $23,587. Raising a child in Houston, however, is somewhat more affordable. A separate SmartAsset study from June 2025 determined it costs $21,868 to raise a child in the Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands metro.

In the report's ranking of states with the highest minimum income needed to support a family with one working adult, a stay-at-home parent, and one child, Texas ranked 32nd on the list.

In other states like Massachusetts, where raising a child can cost more than $40,000 a year, the report acknowledges ways families are working to reduce any financial burdens.

"This often includes considerations around who’s going to work in the household, and whether young children will require paid daycare services while parents are occupied," the report said. "With tradeoffs abound, many parents might seek to understand the minimum income needed to keep the family afloat while allowing the other parent to stay home to raise a young child."

The top 10 states with the lowest minimum income threshold to support a three-person family on one income are:

West Virginia – $68,099
Arkansas – $68,141
Mississippi – $70,242
Kentucky – $70,408
North Dakota – $70,949
Oklahoma – $71,718
Ohio – $72,114
South Dakota – $72,218
Alabama – $72,238
Nebraska – $72,966

texas income smartasset family