The Randy Travis arrest that most people remember happened on the night of August 7, 2012, when Texas state troopers found the country singer naked at the scene of a single-car crash near Tioga, Texas, and charged him with driving while intoxicated and felony retaliation after he threatened to kill the officers. It was one of three arrests Travis had that year. He pleaded guilty to the DWI in January 2013, received two years of probation, and spent the next five years in court trying, unsuccessfully, to keep the dashcam video off the public record.
The Crash Near Tioga
At 11:18 p.m. on August 7, 2012, state troopers responded to a 911 call about a man lying in the road outside Tioga, a small town in Grayson County near the Texas-Oklahoma border.1ABC News. Randy Travis Naked During DWI Arrest They found Travis at the scene of a wreck: he had driven his Pontiac Trans Am into a construction zone on FM 922 at Clover Road.2CBS News Texas. Randy Travis Arrested for DWI Near Tioga
He wasn’t wearing any clothes. Officers reported a strong odor of alcohol and multiple signs of intoxication.1ABC News. Randy Travis Naked During DWI Arrest Travis refused breath and blood tests, and a judge signed a warrant for a blood draw at a hospital in the Sherman area.2CBS News Texas. Randy Travis Arrested for DWI Near Tioga The results came back above 0.15, nearly twice the legal limit and the threshold that elevates a Texas DWI to a Class A misdemeanor.3NBC DFW. Formal DWI Charges Filed Against Randy Travis
On the way to the station, Travis allegedly threatened to shoot and kill the troopers, at one point telling an officer, “You’re a dead man by tomorrow.”4ABC News 4. Dashcam Video Released of Randy Travis Drunk Driving Arrest That statement produced a second, more serious charge: felony retaliation or obstruction. He was booked into the Grayson County jail still undressed. Sgt. Ricky Wheeler of the Grayson County Sheriff’s Office told reporters, “That’s just the way he was brought into our jail,” adding that it was unclear whether Travis had been found that way or had disrobed after the crash. He posted $21,500 bond and was released the next morning.1ABC News. Randy Travis Naked During DWI Arrest
The Two Other Arrests That Year
The Tioga crash was the third time Travis had come to police attention in six months.
In the early hours of February 6, 2012, the night after Super Bowl XLVI, officers in Sanger, Texas, found him sitting in a parked vehicle in front of a Baptist church with an open bottle of wine. They arrested him for public intoxication, a Class C municipal code violation.5CNN. Randy Travis Arrest He was booked into the Denton County jail around 1:30 a.m. and released about six hours later.6Jacksonville.com. Randy Travis Apologizes After Public Intoxication Arrest Outside Texas On June 25, an attorney entered a no-contest plea for him. He paid a $264 fine and got 90 days of probation.
Sixteen days after the Tioga crash, on August 23, 2012, Travis was cited for simple assault after a physical altercation in the parking lot of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano. Police said the fight started when Travis tried to intervene in an argument between his fiancée, Mary Davis, and her estranged husband.7Today. Randy Travis Reaches Plea Deal in Assault Case He was not taken into custody and reportedly appeared sober.8E! Online. Randy Travis: A Timeline of His Turbulent Life Travis initially pleaded not guilty and sued the other man in Collin County, claiming a setup. On January 18, 2013, he took a plea deal in Plano municipal court and received 90 days of deferred adjudication, which allowed him to avoid a formal conviction if he met the conditions.9Courthouse News Service. Randy Travis Gets Deferred Adjudication
The arrests came during a bitter public divorce. Travis had filed to end his 19-year marriage to Elizabeth Hatcher-Travis, who had also been his manager, in October 2010, and the two were trading lawsuits by the spring of 2012.8E! Online. Randy Travis: A Timeline of His Turbulent Life
The Guilty Plea and Sentence
On January 10, 2013, the Grayson County District Attorney’s office formally filed the DWI as a Class A misdemeanor based on the elevated blood-alcohol reading.3NBC DFW. Formal DWI Charges Filed Against Randy Travis Travis pleaded guilty on January 31 in the Grayson County Court in Sherman.10Los Angeles Times. Randy Travis Sentenced in DWI Case Under the plea agreement, prosecutors dropped the felony retaliation charge tied to his threats against the troopers.11CBS News. Randy Travis Pleads Guilty to DWI, Gets Probation
The sentence was heavy for a first DWI conviction:
- Two years of probation, the maximum available
- 180 days of jail time, suspended, to be imposed only on a probation violation
- A $2,000 fine
- At least 30 days of inpatient alcohol treatment
- 100 hours of community service
- An ignition interlock device on any vehicle he drove during probation
Grayson County District Attorney Joe Brown told reporters the fine and community service were “more than double what is usually received” and called the overall punishment “considerably more than is typically received.”11CBS News. Randy Travis Pleads Guilty to DWI, Gets Probation Travis’s attorney said afterward that the singer had begun a “personal revitalization program” and was “completely off of alcohol.”8E! Online. Randy Travis: A Timeline of His Turbulent Life
The Five-Year Fight Over the Dashcam Video
The criminal case ended in early 2013, but the arrest kept generating litigation. Several news organizations filed requests under the Texas Public Information Act for the trooper dashcam footage, and Travis fought for years to keep it out of public view.
A state judge initially granted a request to block release, but the Texas Attorney General’s office ruled that the judge lacked discretion to withhold the footage under the Act.12Amarillo Globe-News. Randy Travis Sues to Block Release of DWI Dash Cam In 2016, a three-judge panel of the Texas Court of Appeals, Third District, ruled that the video should be public, and on June 9, 2017, the Texas Supreme Court declined to hear a further appeal.13The Boot. Texas Supreme Court Won’t Block Release of Randy Travis DWI Arrest Video
Travis then went to federal court. In September 2017 his attorneys filed suit in Austin before U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks, naming the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Attorney General’s office.14The Boot. Randy Travis Federal Lawsuit Over DWI Arrest Video They argued that releasing the video would violate federal medical privacy and disability laws, called the footage “highly embarrassing and intimate,” and pointed to his post-stroke condition, saying Travis “can no longer speak cogently and is not even in the position to discuss, let alone defend, his previous actions.”15Spectrum Local News. Randy Travis Loses Legal Bid to Keep Nude, Belligerent DUI Footage Private
On November 30, 2017, Judge Sparks denied the request for a preliminary injunction, finding that Travis had not shown a “substantial likelihood of success on the claims.” Texas DPS released the footage on December 1, 2017, more than five years after the arrest. Portions were redacted to remove images of Travis unclothed, his medical records, emergency services records, and prescription medication information.16KXII. Texas DPS Releases Dashcam Video of Randy Travis 2012 Grayson County Arrest
What Changed After the Arrest
The reason the arrest reads differently now than it did in 2012 is what happened next. In July 2013, months after the guilty plea, Travis was hospitalized with viral cardiomyopathy and, three days after admission, suffered a massive stroke.17Today. Randy Travis Health Doctors gave him less than a one percent chance of survival and performed emergency surgery to relieve pressure on his brain.18NBC. Randy Travis Health: Where He Is Now Mary Davis, by then his fiancée, was faced with whether to remove him from life support while he was in a semi-coma.
Travis survived with aphasia that severely limits his ability to speak, read, and write. He was hospitalized for roughly four months, had to relearn how to walk, and now uses a wheelchair much of the time. He and Mary married on March 21, 2015, and she assists him in communicating during public appearances. They live on a ranch in Tioga, not far from the road where the crash happened.19People. Who Is Mary Davis, Randy Travis’ Wife