PLEASANTVILLE, Texas – The Harris County District Attorney’s Office has given a 50-year sentence to a serial rapist for assaulting six women in two years.
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The DA’s Office said Erique Howard, 28, agreed to the sentence after he was convicted of raping a woman in May 2022. That’s when investigators said Howard approached the woman while she was putting gas in her car and he forced her to drive to a secluded area, where he sexually assaulted her at gunpoint.
An investigation led detectives to discover she was one of several women Howard raped over two years in Houston’s Pleasantville neighborhood since 2020. Technicians at Houston Forensic Science Center were able to match Howard’s DNA to the samples taken from the sexual assaults he committed, ultimately leading to his arrest.
During the trial in early April, jurors heard several days of testimony including from women who testified how Howard raped them at gunpoint and took money from them.
Prosecutors with the DA’s Office assigned to the case called Howard’s behavior heinous as it all began with setting up meetings with women he’d met online and then raping them. Eventually, he’d force these strangers he’d met to go to remote places.
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“He chose to be a predator near his home in Pleasantville because he knew how to hide in the woods in that area and he knew where to take the women to commit his crimes,” Assistant District Attorney Steven Harris said in a statement. “If he had his way, he would still be hiding in those woods.”
“He was going to keep doing it, and it was going to keep getting worse,” Assistant D.A. Savana Savana Hooper added.
Court records say jurors found Howard guilty of two counts of aggravated sexual assault and armed robbery, which are first-degree felonies that carry life sentences. However, he agreed to a 50-year prison sentence, which the DA’s Office says he cannot appeal.