It’s been the best part of 10 years since we viewed Deborah S. Esquenazi‘s multi-award-winning Southwest of Salem: The Story of the San Antonio Four, and it was such a powerful piece of filmmaking that it’s been almost impossible to forget.  So we came to her Night in West Texas with high expectations, and she didn’t disappoint us at all.

This documentary is a disturbing tale of homophobia and racism, which started back in 1981 when Father Patrick Ryan, a closeted Catholic priest, was found murdered in a seedy motel in West Texas.  It was a vicious killing in an era when priests …. naturally celibate (!) ….. were considered akin to God.  The crime scene was so very bloody that the detectives considered this violent crime an   ‘overkill‘, but within a year, they thought they had resolved it all, when they had a 23-year-old  unemployed Apache native behind bars, 

James Harry Reyos had been the last person to be seen with the Priest who had enticed him to have sex with him earlier that night!  That was enough for him to be charged and convicted, even though there was no physical evidence tying him to the crime, which had occurred when he had been out of State.  It was all part of an attempt not to sully the Priests reputation, and anyway Reyos was considered a ‘throwdown character’ and easy game.

However right from the start It was very obvious to so many people that Reyos was totally innocent but nothing happened about it until forty years later when the daughter-in-law of the Odessa Police Department, Chief Mike Gerke, who was a true-crime podcast fan, raised questions about the conviction after listening to an episode of “Crime Junkie.” Gerke’s re-investigation uncovered a massive oversight: latent bloody fingerprints from the scene had never been processed through AFIS (Automated Fingerprint Identification System), technology that didn’t exist in the 1980s.  But it was when the case was adopted by the Innocent Project of Texas and in the hands of its Deputy Director Allison Clayton there could never be any doubt of its outcome.

Clayton is unwittingly the star of the piece with a combination of sheer common sense, determination and an unshakable love for both Reyes and the case. 

In the 40 years that have passed since Reyes conviction society’s attiudes towards homosexuality have evolved … although at this very moment in time, they could possibly be under threat again. What’s equally sad is the impression one gets is about how so many priests still get trapped between their religious calling and their own sexuality,  and how that can also harm others.