Bloody Baytown: String Of Murders Shocks Community

BAYTOWN, TX — The sleepy blue collar town of Baytown, Texas doesn't usually makes the news unless it relates to the natural gas or oil industry, or there is a natural disaster or industrial accident.

But since the end of 2016, crime has settled into the city with a population of nearly 76,000 residents, with six brutal murders happening within a year’s time. (Want to get daily news updates and other events going on in your area? Sign up for the free Pasadena Patch morning newsletter.)

The last three were likley related to domestic violence, while those committed in late 2016 are still being fully investigated.

The carnage began in November 2016, when police were called to a home in the 5400 block of Louise Street by concerned family members who hadn't heard from Cynthia Morris in several days.

READ: Baytown Man Indicted For Murdering 16-Year Old Girlfriend

Police went inside and found the 37-year old mother and her daughter, 13-year old Breanna Pavilicek, shot to death.

Police learned that Morris’ 16-year old daughter, Kirsten Fritch was missing along with Morris’ car, and issued an Amber Alert.

Jesse Dobbs, 21, who was Fritch’s boyfriend, was considered a person of interest in the shooting deaths, and was believed to be with Fritch.

Hours later, Dobbs was found in a Texas City bar, soaking wet and barefoot, and was taken into custody by olice, who charged him with resisting arrest.

Two days later, investigators found Fritch’s body behind the bar where Dobbs had been arrested.

She’d been stabbed more than 50 times.

Dobbs is currently in the Galveston County Jail.

Since that horrific crime, Dobbs has been indicted for Fritch’s brutal murder, but has not been charged in the shooting deaths of Fritch’s mother and sister.

Still other horrific crimes have plagued Baytown, and much of that has happened within a 30 day span.

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READ: Ex-Husband Charged With Murder After Missing Baytown Realtor Is Found Dead

On Aug. 25, Crystal McDowell, 37, left her boyfriend’s home in Baytown and told him she was driving to her ex-husband’s home in Mont Belvieu to pick up her children.

She was never heard from again.

Her family reported her missing the next day, but McDowell had vanished hours just before Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas coast, unleashing a five-day flooding event that hampered any thought of an investigation.

A week after she was reported missing, police found her black Mercedes Benz in a flooded Motel 6 parking lot off Interstate 10 in Baytown

Steven McDowell, 44, Crystal McDowell’s ex-husband was called in on Sept. 9 to give a statement and allegedly gave investigators a tearful confession to his ex-wife's murder.

Hours later, he led sheriff’s investigators and Texas Rangers to a wooded area in Baytown where her decomposing body was discovered.

She had been strangled, police said.

McDowell is in the Chambers County Jail with his bond set at $500,000.

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On Sept. 14, Cierra Alexis Sutton, 30, was arrested in Metairie, Louisiana and charged with the brutal murder of her boyfriend, Steven Coleman, 32.

Coleman and Sutton had shared a home in the 1700 block of James Bowie Drive in Baytown.

On Aug. 16, the couple had argued, and while Coleman was sleeping, Sutton allegedly shot him in the head.

Police said Sutton allegedly admitted to others that she'd shot him death while he slept, KHOU reported.

Police said Coleman’s body was too heavy for her to move, so she used a machete to chop his body into smaller pieces, which were wrapped in sheets and dumped in trash dumpsters throughout the Baytown area.

Two days later, Sutton reported Coleman missing.

While police searched for Coleman, Sutton stayed with his family and actually helped with the seach, KTRK reported.

"She played the role of an innocent person," Dominique Clark told KTRK. "She played the role of an innocent person, and she played it to the fullest."

Six days after the killing, a male torso was found in a Chamber’s County landfill, which has not yet been identified as Coleman’s.

Several weeks later, Sutton fled to Louisiana, and dropped her 10-year old daughter at a friend’s home in Metairie near New Orleans.

Sutton was later found at an apartment complex in Louisiana and was taken to the Jefferson Parish Jail, where she is being held until she is transferred back to the Houston area.

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On Sept. 16, Roy Garcia Jr., 35, was arrested several hours after witnesses said he shot his common-law wife to death as she sat in a car with her two children, ages 5 and 13-years old.

Witnesses told police that Julia Martinez, 34, drove up to the home in the 7900 block of Echinacea just before 1:30 p.m., and was confronted outside the home by Garcia, who was demanding that she get out of the car, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Harris County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Thomas Gilliland said Garcia was trying to talk to Martinez through the window, when he pulled out a gun and shot her through the window.

Martinez’s car rolled down the street, and crashed into a row of mailboxes, and Martinez, died in the front seat of her car, the Baytown Sun reported.

Garcia immediately got into a tan Chevrolet Tahoe, and fled.

He was found hours later at a rest stop in Guadalupe County, near Kingsbury, where he surrendered to deputies from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

He is in the Guadalupe County Jail in Seguin awaiting transfer to the Harris County Jail.

Image: Renee Schiavone/Patch Staff

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