Biography
Edgar was born and grew up in Laredo, Texas. He was a high school football standout. Valdez's nickname, La Barbie, came from his American football coach at United High School; due to his light skin, green eyes, and facial features, he was compared to a Ken doll.
Valdez's first arrest came at 19 in Texas, where he was charged with criminally negligent homicide for running over a middle school counselor with his truck while speeding down a Laredo street. He was not indicted. He became a marijuana dealer on the streets of Laredo while still in high school. He turned down his father's offer to finance a college education in order to focus on his business, but was soon indicted on charges of distributing marijuana. He fled to Mexico to avoid capture, where he allegedly joined the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel and quickly moved up through the ranks due to his connections in the United States.
Read more about this topic: Edgar Valdez Villarreal
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (1740–95)
“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)
“As we approached the log house,... the projecting ends of the logs lapping over each other irregularly several feet at the corners gave it a very rich and picturesque look, far removed from the meanness of weather-boards. It was a very spacious, low building, about eighty feet long, with many large apartments ... a style of architecture not described by Vitruvius, I suspect, though possibly hinted at in the biography of Orpheus.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)