Houston – It was believed that a serial killer prowled the streets violently raping and killing women in the Acres Homes neighborhood in 2006.
People were terrified, never knowing who was attacking these women.
Then came the stunning realization that three predators treated the neighborhood as their hunting ground, never knowing of each other until they were caught.
“We had no idea it would be multiple people,” said Houston Police Detective Darcus Shorten.
Shorten was one of the lead detectives on a task force charged with investigating the murders of several women in Acres Homes.
In addition to the murders, several sexual assaults were also reported. Shorten said many of the victims were involved in prostitution and drug use and their initial disappearances went unreported.
“We were able to gain information on our offenders by the individuals that were left alive. So the sexual assault victims played a large role in solving the homicide cases,” said Shorten.
Shorten said the brutality of the attacks is what prompted some of the women to come forward.
These reports helped police learn more than one predator was working in the area.
“I have to say that we had to, to come to a point in the investigations where we looked at each other and said, ‘we’re dealing with two different people,’” said Shorten. “Some of the complainants describe the person as being lighter complected and some described the person as having a Domino’s Pizza uniform on. So it was like, wait a minute, we’re dealing with two different, two different things, and we had to come to that realization that we had two offenders working in the same area at the same time, and they did not know each other. In other words, they were not partners.”
Houston police eventually arrested LaMarques McWilliams, Brian “Baby Boy” Davis, and Bilford Junious and all three are now in prison. In our season 3 finale of The Evidence Room Shorten walks us through how investigators were led to each man.
Catch up on other episodes of ‘The Evidence Room’ here.
