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Local DJ’s killer denied parole By Philip Jankowski Longtime residents of Taylor may remember the mellow voice of Tony Von, whose smooth six-day-a-week KTAE broadcast brought the latest in blues and gospel from the airwaves to living rooms across Central Texas. They may also remember the sudden end to his life in the summer of 1979, when he was gunned down near his record store in south Taylor. His killer, then ex-convict James Pullins, was recently denied parole for the slaying. He is currently serving a life sentence for a weapons possession charge related to the murder and is possibly the longest serving inmate from Williamson County, according to Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley. Pullins killed Von with a shotgun he had purchased the same week of the slaying. Pullins had reportedly been drinking at a club across the street from Von’s record store, Tony Von’s Record Shop and Entertainment Agency at 105 E. Walnut St., when he began firing his shotgun outside. Von, 57 at the time, got his pistol and confronted Pullins, yelling at him to stop firing within city limits and leave the area. Pullins left, but the moment’s peace was only temporary. Hours later, around 10:30 p.m., Pullins returned to the club and fired his shotgun twice at Von, killing him. Pullins was arrested for the murder, but because of the possibility that he would pursue self-defense as an exonerating tactic during the trial, then-district attorney Ed Walsh decided to not proceed with a murder trial. Instead Walsh went after an unlawful weapons possession charge. Because Pullins had been convicted of two prior robbery offenses, a conviction would mean life in prison. That’s what Pullins got. But in 1990, prison overcrowding led to his parole, Bradley said. His reprieve from prison did not last. Four years later, a San Antonio policeman spotted Pullins firing a pistol into the air. The officer saw Pullins toss the handgun out of sight. The weapon turned out to be stolen. Bradley has protested Pullins’ early release multiple times, including this most recent, when he sent a letter to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice indicating his opposition to an early release. Pullins is now 76. Von, whose full name was Tony Von Walls, was a mainstay at KTAE before his life was tragically cut short. His show was wildly popular in Austin and Taylor, said his former program director Fred Switzer. For 25 years his AM broadcast could be heard from the western outskirts of Houston to just south of Waco. “Lots and lots of folks listened to him. When he was going in to the 70s, we had listeners all over,” Switzer said. Every weekday at 4 p.m. listeners would tune to 1260 AM and hear the steady clap and wailing sax of Bill Doggett’s Honky Tonk Part 2 bring them into Von’s show. His show often annoyed Austin DJs, who envied the Taylor DJ’s popularity. Von’s career was immersed in music — broadcasting, selling and promoting musicians of a diverse ilk. His show was a different shade to KTAE, which was known for playing country and western music. He also worked at KVET Austin. His untimely death jarred the community. “It was complete shock,” Switzer said. “Good gracious how could that happen? Tony was not a man of violence. He was a get-along.” According to Switzer, Von was a natural and inimitable on-air personality, whose catch phrase “TV on the radio in living color” may have been borrowed by British DJ giant Tommy Vance. The colorful phrase could even live on today through an internationally-known Brooklyn band aptly named TV on the Radio.
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