Southwest
Texas realtor joins squatter Senate hearing, discusses approach to building 'trust' with unlawful occupants
A Texas realtor out of Houston has leveraged a unique approach to removing squatters from properties, and it scored him a seat at a Senate hearing on Wednesday in Austin.
George Huntoon told Fox News Digital during a phone interview that, since 2020, he has handled four squatter situations in which he speaks directly to the occupants and uses a cover story to gain trust.
The first situation he assisted with was when he helped his friend remove squatters from her property, an instance he chronicled and posted to his YouTube channel.
Since he posted the video in May 2022, Huntoon’s approach to squatter removal has gained a lot of traction, causing others to reach out to him for help while dealing with the same situations.
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A Texas realtor has helped many clients deal with squatters living in their homes. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images/File)
“Squatters have always kind of been a thing, obviously, but when I got called in on that very first one in 2020, I wasn’t expecting anything,” Huntoon told Fox News Digital. “Then that’s when I would start getting a few more phone calls about this situation.”
Huntoon calls his approach to dealing with squatters a “counterintuitive” one in which he puts himself in the position of being a “negotiator” with them.
During one of these squatter situations, which Huntoon calls the worst he has dealt with to date, involved a house on Murrayhill in west Houston. The house previously belonged to an elderly woman who moved into a nursing home. After squatters set up shop in the home, the woman’s extended family reached out to the realtor for help.
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“I went over there and created a cover story that I was with, like the church or this organization down the road, and I was there to take a look at the house because we were going to try to fix it up for them a little bit to make it livable,” Huntoon said of the property he frequently visited between January and April 2023.
Realtor George Huntoon spoke with Fox News Digital about preventative measures people can take to protect their properties against squatters. (Michael Blackshire/Washington Post via Getty Images/File)
“I created that kind of cover story and so I could slowly build trust from these people in there, and that’s what happened,” he said. “It was a two-, three-month process, which was something like I’ve never seen. I became embedded in this house, daily or every other day.”
As someone the squatters spoke with often, Huntoon told Fox News Digital that he slowly started planting seeds that the police were on to the house, which he said was full of criminal activity.
“I kind of gained this trust, but it was a psychological game,” Huntoon said. “I was playing my games, they were playing theirs, but I slowly planted a seed that ‘Hey, I think the cops are really onto this place, guys.’”
In this particular scenario, the squatters slowly started to vacate the property, until there were just a few left, who were arrested.
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In the squatter cases that Huntoon plays a hand in, he interacts directly with them while simultaneously going through the legal process to get them removed.
“We did go through the court process as well, in parallel to what I was doing, and we ended up getting the eviction, finally,” he said of the Murrayhill home. “But what I was able to avoid was some showdown between the police and them.”
“You have some professional squatters that are just horrible people, just gaming the system, and then you have some really poor homeless people looking for a roof over their head,” the realtor said. “You run a fine line of trying to be humane in certain circumstances as well, and I kind of took that approach here, and it was successful.”
All the work that Huntoon does to help people remove squatters from their homes in the past led him to be invited to speak during a Senate hearing. (George Huntoon)
With squatter issues consuming the country, Huntoon offered tips for homeowners to keep in mind when they are leaving their properties to help protect themselves.
“If you’re going to be away from this home, you absolutely need to be monitoring your home, whether it’s security cameras, alarm systems, neighbors, because if people go and move in, and no one says anything, and they can, they’ll fly under the radar, then that’s when problems start,” Huntoon said.
Also, befriend neighbors who can be your eyes and ears when you’re not around. Not knowing who your neighbors are, a very common circumstance today, is one reason Huntoon highlighted that messy squatter issues occur.
“In a lot of neighborhoods these days, and I see it as a realtor, people don’t know each other, you don’t know your neighbors, everyone’s so busy,” Huntoon said. “We’re all just busy and no one talks to anyone anymore.”
Huntoon told Fox News Digital in an email that it seems that Texas is serious about laws to make the process of dealing with squatters easier for homeowners.
Murrayhill in west Houston.
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Southwest
Missing 19-year-old Camila Mendoza Olmos believed to be ‘in imminent danger,’ Texas sheriff says
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Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar indicated that authorities believe that Camila Mendoza Olmos, a 19-year-old woman who went missing on Christmas Eve, is “in imminent danger.”
The FBI is supplying technical aid and the Homeland Security Department is keeping an eye on border crossings as well as international travel, Salazar indicated, according to ABC News.
“We definitely don’t want to miss anything,” he said, according to the outlet. “The ground search is somewhat limited to a couple of square miles. We’re also not ruling out that this case may take us outside the borders of the continental United States.”
TEXAS 19-YEAR-OLD CAMILA MENDOZA OLMOS VANISHES OUTSIDE HER HOME ON CHRISTMAS EVE
Camila Mendoza Olmos, 19, was last seen outside her home in San Antonio, Texas, on Christmas Eve, authorities said. (Bexar County Sheriff’s Office)
The sheriff confirmed to ABC that the young woman had not been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which he verified despite Olmos being an American citizen.
“That was a personal concern. So, I had it checked to make sure that there were no stops, no detentions, and that she’s not somewhere in a federal detention facility. That is something we needed to check,” Salazar noted, according to the outlet.
Fox News Digital reached out to the sheriff’s office for comment.
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Camila Mendoza Olmos was last seen around 6:58 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025, in northwest Bexar County, Texas. (Bexar County Sheriff’s Office)
A December 24 Bexar County Sheriff’s Office Facebook post noted, “Camila was last seen leaving her residence at approximately 6:58 a.m. on Wednesday, December 24, 2025. Video footage from that time shows an unknown individual, believed to be Camila, searching inside her vehicle for an unidentified item. Moments later, the footage ends. It is believed that she left the residence on foot, as her vehicle remained at the location.”
The post notes, “The only items known to be on her person are her car key and possibly her driver’s license. Camila’s mother stated that Camila normally goes for a morning walk; however, she became concerned when Camila did not return within a reasonable period of time.”
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The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office said, “It is believed that she left the residence on foot, as her vehicle remained at the location.” (Google Maps)
The sheriff’s office indicated in the post that she had been “Last seen wearing: Baby blue with Black Hoodie, Baby blue Pajama bottoms, White shoes.”
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Southwest
DAVID MARCUS: At AmericaFest, two legacies hang in the balance, Charlie Kirk’s and Donald Trump’s
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There are two legacies hanging in the balance this weekend in Phoenix as Turning Point USA puts on its annual AmericaFest conference, first is its late founder, Charlie Kirk’s and the other is President Donald Trump’s.
At the convention center here in Arizona, as many as 25,000 attendees are expected to gather to celebrate the life of Kirk, who was tragically murdered just months ago, but also to try to chart a course forward for the movement he marshaled.
Arriving a bit late on Thursday, I was greeted by Lucas, a TPUSA employee from Detroit in his mid-twenties. He was a picture-perfect ambassador, a clean-cut kid who is eschewing his generation’s almost epic bout of despair and instead leaning in to create positive change.
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“The energy has been amazing,” he told me, referring to the huge upswing in interest in TPUSA since Kirk’s horrible murder.
“Not the way you’d want it to happen,” I somewhat darkly noted, but Lucas said, “You have to find the silver lining, I guess.”
Lucas and the hundreds like him are honestly an inspiration, while so many of their generation are out of shape from toe to top, they see a bright future for America that so many of us in advanced years have long ago forgotten.
But do not get the impression that at AmFest this year all is hugs and kumbaya. Iin fact, what you will find here are the early stages of a war to define what Donald Trump’s legacy, and the legacy of his MAGA movement will be.
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Thursday night’s lineup on the big stage was a potent mix, featuring both Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire and Tucker Carlson, whose current feud over Israel has become a bit more than nasty.
I won’t litigate the feud here, it’s all on video after all, but the broader point is that some lines are being drawn ahead of the first presidential race in a while, in 2028, that presumably will not include the name Trump on the ballot.
‘PEOPLE WERE LISTENING’: PROSECUTOR SAYS CHARLIE KIRK WAS TARGETED FOR HIS INFLUENCE
At Amfest, we finally have more than tea leaves to tell us what the conservative movement after Trump and Kirk will look like — we have the actual tea, and a few stains to boot.
The factions are becoming clear, Charlie Kirk’s widow Erika, in her speech Thursday enthusiastically endorsed Vice President JD Vance for president, while Shapiro said, more moderately, that Vance would have to build his own coalition.
Is Shapiro lining up a movement behind a potential candidate like Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz who has not been a member of Donald Trump’s, let’s face it, somewhat obsequious court of the Oval Office, and if so, can Erika Kirk’s power thwart such a play?
This weekend in Phoenix has assembled the people with the strongest claim to the MAGA movement — a once disparate band of misfits whose allegiance to the “orange man” who kept winning put them at the forefront of American power and politics.
Many of the grave and profound conservative voices and pundits of old, who give no truck to the New Right have fled ship for think tanks or psuedo-right-wing journals that exist only to destroy Trump and his movement, but they are not the vanguard. The real fight is here.
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What plays out over this weekend in Phoenix will have profound implications not just for next year’s midterms, but for the presidential race in 2028.
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Charlie Kirk, founder and executive director of Turning Point USA, during a panel discussion at the Generation Next Summit at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on March 22, 2018, in Washington. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Legacies are matters of the future, and it is only the young attendees at Amfest who will see the longest lasting fruits of the American conservative movement — a movement still firmly shaped by Charlie Kirk.
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It is both remarkable and stark to see the myriad and often giant images of their Charlie around the convention center amid his earthly absence. Each image is a reminder both of his life’s great success and its tragic end.
But Charlie Kirk’s legacy will not be a statue, or a plaque. His legacy will live in the hearts of the young kids assembled in Phoenix this weekend. Maybe they are naïve. Maybe they are not withered and weathered by life’s brutal storms. God bless them for their hope. We could use a bit more of it.
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Southwest
Two riders trapped more than 100 feet in air after Texas roller coaster malfunctions
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Two theme parkgoers were trapped more than 100 feet in the air for more than 30 minutes this week after a roller coaster in Texas malfunctioned.
The Circuit Breaker roller coaster at the Circuit of the Americas near Austin unexpectedly stopped at the first drop, leaving Matthew Cantu, 24, and Nicholas Sanchez, 20, dangling at a 90-degree angle Wednesday night, KXAN-TV reported, citing a publicist representing the two men.
“For more than 30 minutes after the ride stopped, family members reported receiving no clear updates, while witnesses said staff provided conflicting explanations, including comments that the riders ‘weren’t strapped in currently,’” the publicist’s news release said, People magazine reported.
UNIVERSAL ORLANDO THEME PARK COASTER DEATH RULED ACCIDENTAL
Construction continues on the Circuit Breaker, the first tilt roller coaster in Texas. (Jay Janner/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images)
“A sensor triggered a ride delay,” the Circuit of the Americas told Fox News Digital in a statement Saturday. “It was resolved, and the ride proceeded without incident.
“As with all amusement attractions of this sort, delays occasionally occur. We regret the inconvenience and are glad that out of the 25,000 people that have ridden the coaster, only two have this badge of courage.”
The Circuit Breaker is Texas’ first “tilt” roller coaster, which means the track tilts 90 degrees for a nearly vertical drop during the ride.
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The ride opened as a preview in October and will officially open next year, according to KVUE-TV.
Austin-Travis County EMS responded to the incident before 10 p.m. Wednesday, evaluating one of the men who refused medical attention, KVUE reported.
Cedar Point in Ohio opened its new Siren’s Curse roller coaster this summer. (Akron Beacon Journal/Imagn)
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Austin-Travis County EMS for comment.
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Another tilt roller coaster, known as the Siren’s Curse at Cedar Point in Ohio, has similarly malfunctioned multiple times since it opened this summer.
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