A Texas man has been charged with one count of felony murder after police say he murdered his own daughter, 2, while Facetiming the child’s mother during a high-speed chase.
Deontray Flanagan, 25, had taken Zevaya Marie Flanagan out of daycare around 10:00am on Mar. 20 then stormed into a local Walmart where the child’s mother, Kairsten Watson, worked and demanded that she give him her phone and passcodes, the Houston Police Department said.
“Basically threatening to hurt the child if she did not turn those items over,” an HPD spokesperson said in a press conference. “She complied. She made an attempt to try and rescue her daughter from his stronghold. But she was unable to do so. At that point, we’re told, [Deontray Flanagan] struck her possibly a couple of times to the face and continued to flee the location.”
The defendant managed to retrieve Watson’s phone then left with their daughter. Authorities were contacted shortly after and were able to find his location by tracking the phone.
A high-speed chase later ensued, lasting about 45 minutes and spanning some 30 miles. According to law enforcement, the suspect was driving in the wrong lane and slammed into other vehicles when they finally caught up with him driving in a red Camaro. All the while, the child was driving alongside him without a seatbelt.
Police said that during the chase, Flanagan was Facetiming Watson ordering her to give him the password to her phone. Watson says she could see her daughter as he Facetimed her.
“Her face was just covered in blood,” she told KRIV. “He hit her with something really hard, and then he called me on Facetime, and he showed me. He choked her on Facetime. I said, ‘Tray stop, that is your daughter, stop, she loves you.’ His exact words were you only love that man, you did this to her.”
She continued: “I know in her mind she probably was just like ‘what did I do?’ Watson further detailed to KHOU. “‘Why are you doing this to me for? Like I love you, why are you hurting me?’”
The victim’s grandmother said she was aware of the situation as it unfolded and she hoped that her granddaughter would make it out alive.
“But then he showed me the lifeless corpse of my granddaughter,” Curtis Watson said. “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. To have to go through that type of anguish and pain.”
After the chase, the suspect was engaged in a 20-minute standoff with a Houston-based SWAT team that moved in and captured the suspect. Meanwhile, the child was airlifted to a local hospital to be treated for sustained injuries. She was pronounced dead on arrival.
Flanagan is currently being held on a $2 million bond. Police are awaiting autopsy results before possibly adding additional charges against the suspect.
“Right now, felony murder is the most appropriate charge without knowing more about the medical evidence,” Gilbert Sawtelle, a representative at the Harris County District Attorney’s Office said in comments obtained by KTRK. “Once we hear back from the medical examiner about exactly what killed her, the charge could certainly be upgraded. It’s my suspicion that Zevaya died due to strangulation, which would not be the result of any sort of blunt force impacts that she sustained in the car, driving with the defendant. And if that is the case, that’s an intentional or knowing killing of a child less than 10, so that would be capital murder.”
