Lake 7 Murder Cover-Up: Who Killed Joe Alpanalpa?

Was a Texas cowboy’s hand murdered to hide a $160M land heist?

By Richard Luthmann with Dave Weigel

(LUBBOCK, TEXAS) – A disabled veteran is dead, a ranch has been seized, and a West Texas water project lies at the center of an explosive scandal. A cabal of connected landowners and officials used a family court case as a pretext to rob a man and make millions in the process.

World-class trick-roper Brice Chapman – a cowboy entertainer who performed for two U.S. presidents and a direct descendant of Abraham Lincoln – refused to sell his family ranch to make way for the proposed Lake 7 reservoir. His land sits just outside Lubbock’s East Loop, adjacent to property owned by the family of Judge Brian Quinn, who stood to profit enormously if the lake project proceeded.

Chapman’s refusal threw a wrench into local officials’ plans.

Now Chapman and the Family Court Fraud Warrior Project, led by Wall Street’s David Weigel, are blowing the whistle on how his land was stolen – and how an alleged cover-up of Chapman’s ranch hand, Joe Alpanalpa’s death, is protecting the perpetrators.

The result is a tale of murder, land theft, and brazen corruption that has Lubbock’s authorities under fire.

The Rancher Who Wouldn’t Sell

Chapman’s ranch was the missing piece needed to create Lake 7, a planned reservoir touted as Lubbock’s future water supply. Surrounding landowners – including Judge Quinn’s relatives – were reportedly willing to deal. Chapman was not.

“They’ve been disrespectful from the beginning,” he told local media years ago, declaring he wouldn’t be left “high & dry” on the fate of his property.

Lake 7 would inundate part of Chapman’s ranch, and he suspected powerful interests aimed to force him out. Those interests weren’t about to take no for an answer.

In 2021, Chapman was jailed on a disputed family court matter as part of a scheme unleashed to grab his land. Weigel, whose watchdog group champions Chapman’s case, described the plot in stark terms.

“They didn’t even care how obvious this was… This wasn’t just ripping off somebody’s half-a-million-dollar house… This guy, Brice, performed in front of two U.S. presidents, a descendant of Abraham Lincoln,” Weigel said.

In other words, Chapman wasn’t some push-over “nobody” – and yet the conspirators moved against him openly, with startling arrogance, using Family Court as their weapon.

Local attorney Matthew Harris engineered a fraudulent court-ordered auction of Chapman’s ranch under the pretext of unpaid divorce debts (a void judgment, Chapman argues). Chapman ultimately spent 582 days in jail on that void judgment, sidelined while his property was targeted.

On July 6, 2021, a “sale” of Chapman’s homestead was held on the Lubbock County courthouse steps. The fix was in from the start: there was no neutral judge’s order approving a sale, and Chapman – the sole legal owner – never agreed to any auction. In fact, he’d actively disputed the sale of his homestead, but to no avail.

According to Chapman’s later affidavit, “there was only one ‘bidder’ in this ‘sale’”, a bidder who insiders say was connected to Judge Quinn’s family.

Weigel obtained a recording of the auction and noted how the officials breezed past legal requirements.

“It is a homestead that cannot be sold at auction,” he pointed out, yet Harris and company just blew it off.

The opening (and only) bid for the ranch was set at $250,000 – a pittance for prime land potentially worth hundreds of times more.

Indeed, as Weigel exclaimed: “$160 million land go for $250,000. Not a bad deal. And why is Matt Harris there? … Checking on his vested interest”.

Minutes later, Chapman’s 46-acre ranch was sold for that rock-bottom $250K, effectively stolen via a rigged public sale.

Lake 7 Murder Cover-Up: From $250K to a $160M Utility Deal

The payoff for this land grab was swift and staggering. Only months after the courthouse auction, the insider buyer flipped Chapman’s ranch in a massive utility development deal tied to Lake 7. The land was resold for a nine-figure sum – an estimated $160+ million – as part of the lake project’s land assembly.

Those proceeds didn’t go to Chapman, who was still behind bars, but to the network that orchestrated the flip.

“It’s pretty easy to trace what happened at that closing table,” observed Weigel.

There were effectively two closings: one in which the property was grabbed for $250K, and another in which it was turned around for an enormous check from a power company.

“They just took the money and kind of divvied it up in the back of a pickup truck,” quipped Wall Street’s Weigel, noting that even a basic forensic follow-the-money investigation could end with the culprits “all walking out in bracelets.”

Chapman alleges that Judge Quinn’s family benefited most: Quinn, the chief justice of an appellate court, allegedly “made no less than $70 million” from the Lake 7 land dealings. Chapman had refused to enrich the judge by selling voluntarily, so the schemers simply took the land by force.

In Chapman’s words, “they fraudulently stole my property, which is worth about $160 to $180 million”, all while he was jailed on what he calls a bogus charge.

Chapman even claims that a Lubbock County deputy threatened to shoot him if he tried to return to his own ranch after it was seized – a threat allegedly made while the deed still showed Chapman as the lawful owner.

Lake 7 Murder Cover-Up: The Secret Recording and a Witness’s Death

If not for a grainy secret recording of the July 6, 2021, auction, this brazen land theft might have gone unnoticed by anyone outside Lubbock’s power circle. But Joe Alpanalpa, a 67-year-old disabled Army veteran who worked as a ranch hand for Chapman, was present that day and clandestinely filmed the proceedings on his phone.

Chapman got word of the recording.

From jail, he sent a letter putting a Quinn associate on notice – informing them that he knew about the fixed sale and that evidence existed. That letter, Chapman says, went out in late November 2021.

Twenty days later, Joe Alpanalpa was dead.

Chapman recounts the grim timeline bluntly: “The guy who videoed the sale of my ranch is now dead. After I contacted [the judge’s friend] by mail… 20 days later, Joe Alpanapa was dead behind my house. This is corruption and organized crime.”

Alpanalpa’s body was found on December 20, 2021, inside the trailer he lived in on Chapman’s property – shot once in the chest. The scene was disturbingly suspicious: the trailer had been ransacked as if someone had desperately searched it. Chapman says that the perpetrators were looking for Alpanalpa’s auction video.

Multiple firearms were found near Joe’s body, and blood was spattered on them, according to police reports. Yet investigators rushed to call it a suicide.

The official Lubbock Police report was stamped “NO CRIME OCCURRED,” effectively closing the case within hours.

Friends balked at the conclusion. Alpanalpa was physically disabled and had just been released from the hospital; shooting himself center-mass in the gut was not only an unlikely method of suicide but one he might not have even had the strength to carry out.

Chapman and Weigel point out that Joe had plans for the next morning – hardly the mindset of a man about to end his life. Most tellingly, Chapman notes, “one of [the conspirators] visited [Joe] on or about 12/19/2021” – the day before he was found dead.

To Chapman and his allies, the conclusion is inescapable: Joe Alpanalpa was murdered in cold blood, in an effort to silence a witness and retrieve the incriminating auction recording.

Weigel flatly declared, “You are felonious murderers… Murderers of this guy, Joe. Period. End of story.”

Lake 7 Murder Cover-Up: Accused Conspirators and the Cover-Up

Chapman is fighting back in the courts and in public opinion. In May 2023, he filed formal criminal complaints accusing a who  ‘s-who of Lubbock’s legal establishment of organized crime, theft, and capital murder.

The capital murder complaint zeroes in on attorney Matthew Harris as the one who “intentionally caused the death” of Joe Alpanalpa in retaliation for Joe’s role as a witness. But Chapman alleges Harris did not act alone – he was “collaborating with a criminal combination” of officials and insiders.

That combination, according to the sworn complaint, includes Judge Brian Quinn, Judge Stephen Johnson, Brandon Tyler, Jarrett Thornton, Adam Holmes, Ashley Dickerson, Judge Mackey Hancock, Billy Eichmann, Ed Self, Jan Aubrey Fouts, Jody Barnes, Sheriff Kelly Rowe, Susan Rowley, Barbara Suscy, Charles Chambers, Cullen Quinn, Judge Anne-Marie Carruth, Carrie Harris, Emily Walterscheid, and Blake Walterscheid, among others.

These individuals – judges, lawyers, law enforcement officers, and their associates – are named as conspirators who allegedly participated in or benefited from the fraudulent land sale and the ensuing cover-up of Joe Alpanalpa’s death.

Chapman’s companion complaint on the property theft further details how Sheriff Rowe and Harris allegedly forced through an illegal deed transfer at gunpoint and oversaw the sham auction with only four witnesses present (one of whom was Joe Alpanapa).

The allegations read like something out of the Wild West: an old-fashioned land grab executed under color of law, and a dead man left as collateral damage.

Officially, Lubbock authorities have dismissed Chapman’s claims at every turn. The Lubbock Police Department never wavered from calling Joe’s death a suicide. No homicide investigation was ever opened. Chapman’s criminal complaints – effectively accusing local power-brokers of capital murder and multi-million dollar crimes – have so far gone nowhere in Texas courts. It appears the local justice system is either unwilling or unable to pursue the case.

That leaves Chapman and the Family Court Fraud Warrior Project to plead their case in the court of public opinion.

“This evidence…got a man murdered,” Weigel said in a recent broadcast, vowing not to soften his words. “I’m not gonna say ‘alleged.’… It’s just an entire series of ‘are you effing kidding me?’” he vented, after reviewing the auction video and cover-up.

The anger is palpable – and understandable, given the stakes. Chapman’s supporters are adamant that if justice cannot be found in Lubbock, it must come from above. Either statewide law enforcement – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton – has to look at this, or” federal authorities must intervene.

Indeed, Chapman says he has notified everyone from the Texas Rangers to the U.S. Department of Justice about his case, but so far it has been an uphill battle.

Questions For The Lawyer

We asked several pointed questions of family law Attorney Matthew L. Harris.

As of press time, we didn’t receive any response. Here is what we asked:

From: Richard Luthmann <richard.luthmann@protonmail.com>
Date: On Monday, December 1st, 2025 at 7:01 AM
Subject: Media Inquiry Regarding Chapman Case, July 6 Auction, and Death of Witness Joe Alpanalpa
To: Matthew@MatthewHarrisLaw.com <Matthew@MatthewHarrisLaw.com>
CC: Dick LaFontaine <RALafontaine@protonmail.com>, Rick LaRivière <RickLaRiviere@proton.me>, Modern Thomas Nast <mthomasnast@protonmail.com>, Michael Volpe <mvolpe998@gmail.com>, Frankie Pressman <frankiepressman@protonmail.com>, Paul Boyne <paboyne@gmail.com>

Attorney Harris,

We are investigative reporters preparing an article concerning the legal proceedings involving Charles Brice Chapman, the July 6, 2021, sheriff’s auction of his property, and the subsequent death of Mr. Joe Alpanalpa, a key witness who recorded that auction.

We want to ensure that your perspective is accurately reflected. We request your response to the following questions:

1. Your Role in the Auction

   • You authored or transmitted the documents used to initiate the July 6, 2021, auction of Mr. Chapman’s homesteaded property.

   • Can you explain your legal authority to request or initiate that sale?

   • Under what provision of Texas law can a homestead be auctioned for a civil family-court debt?

   • Did you ever advise the sheriff’s office or any court that the property was a protected homestead?

2. Legality of the Auction Process

   • The auction notice stated the sale would occur at the gazebo outside the courthouse. Yet the sale occurred inside the courthouse on the 5th floor with only a small number of individuals present.

   • Can you explain why the sale location differed from the publicly posted notice?

   • Do you believe this complied with Texas statutory requirements for sheriff’s sales, public notice, and public access?

3. Presence at the Sale

   • Video shows you standing inside the auction room observing the sale: https://rumble.com/v71t89g-family-court-fraud-warriors-special-edition.html?start=1473

   • Why were you present at a sale at which, on paper, you represented the creditor rather than the purchaser?

   • Did you communicate with the winning bidder, his representatives, or any member of Judge Brian Quinn’s family before or after the sale?

4. Connection to the Winning Bidder and Land Flip

   • The sole bidder at the auction is alleged to have business ties to individuals close to Judge Quinn’s family, whose property was later sold to facilitate the Lake 7 project.

   • Do you deny having any advance knowledge of an intended resale of Chapman’s land?

   • Did you receive any compensation, fee, or benefit connected to the eventual resale of the property for a reported amount in excess of $150 million?

5. The Legal Bill Resulting in Chapman’s Incarceration

   • Your billing claim and enforcement actions resulted in Mr. Chapman being jailed for 582 days.

   • Do you maintain that the underlying divorce decree—signed by Judge Stephen Johnson, who previously represented Chapman’s ex-wife—is valid and enforceable under the Texas Constitution’s judicial-disqualification provisions?

   • Do you dispute that the billing order used to jail Chapman flowed directly from a void judgment?

6. The Death of Witness Joe Alpanalpa

   • Mr. Alpanalpa secretly recorded the auction and was one of the only neutral witnesses present.

   • He was found shot in the chest on December 20, 2021, twenty days after Mr. Chapman sent a letter from jail specifically identifying that a recording had been made.

   • Did you ever speak with Mr. Alpanalpa before his death?

   • Were you aware he had recorded the auction?

   • Do you categorically deny any involvement in, knowledge of, or connection to events leading to his death?

7. Conspiracy Allegations

   • Mr. Chapman’s sworn capital murder complaint filed in Lubbock County names you as part of an alleged criminal combination involved in the unlawful seizure of his ranch and the retaliation against a witness.

   • Do you categorically deny participating in any conspiracy involving:

     • The forced sale of Chapman’s homestead

     • The alleged coercion or intimidation of witnesses

     • The concealment or destruction of evidence

     • Any conduct relating to the death of Mr. Alpanalpa?

8. Opportunity for Comment

   • If you believe any aspect of the public narrative surrounding these events is mistaken, misreported, or incomplete, please state so directly.

   • If you have documentary evidence supporting your position, you are invited to provide it for inclusion.

For fairness and accuracy, we will include your responses in full. Please respond as soon as possible, as we are preparing to go to press. If we receive your responses after press time, we will include them in a follow-up.

Thank you for your attention to this matter!

If we hear anything back from Attorney Matthew Harris, we will publish it in further reporting.

Lake 7 Murder Cover-Up: Where Are the Authorities?

The evidence of corruption and retaliation in Lubbock’s Lake 7 project is now documented in black and white – and on video. Brice Chapman has laid out his case, at great personal cost, alleging that a cabal of officials stole his land and killed his friend to cover it up.

The response from those charged with enforcing the law has been silence. This raises urgent questions: Where is the Texas Attorney General? Where is the FBI?

Chapman and Weigel are demanding answers. They insist that if local law enforcement can’t (or won’t) hold the powerful accountable, then state and federal authorities must step in before it’s too late.

“Follow the money,” Weigel urges – the trail, he contends, will lead straight to the perpetrators.

Weigel is also exploring non-conventional means to compel accountability.

In the meantime, Chapman refuses to back down.

“They have threatened to kill me,” he says bluntly, but he continues to fight for his homestead and for justice for Joe Alpanalpa.

This bombshell story of murder and land theft in Lubbock cries out for a full investigation. The people of Texas deserve to know whether a man was killed and a ranch stolen to pave the way for Lake 7. And if so, they deserve to see the guilty brought to justice – no matter their title or position.

Where are the prosecutors, the Texas Rangers, the FBI? This outlet has sent oficial inquiries to law enforcement in Austin and Washigton, and will report any responses received in our next installments on this case.

It’s time to find out who killed Joe Alpanalpa, and who organized the theft of Brice Chapman’s land – before faith in West Texas justice is drowned for good in the waters of Lake 7.