PEARLAND, Texas – Homicide detectives in Pearland are investigating the City’s first unsolved murder of the year after a father was shot while driving in a case that has not been ruled road rage.
Dominique Anderson, 33, was shot around 12:41 a.m. Friday while driving eastbound on Shadow Creek Parkway at State Highway 288 where the street turns into McHard Road.
Body camera video shows Pearland police officers pulling him from his car, after it traveled about a quarter mile from the shooting scene, before crashing out into a pole and tree on the side of the road.
"If I knew the last time I saw you would be the last time I saw you or talked to you, I would have held you a lot longer and kissed you a lot longer,” his widow Christina Anderson said. “I miss him and it’s so hard, I’m still processing it.”
The shooter took off and Anderson died at Ben Taub Hospital, leaving his three and 10-year-old children without a father.
“He had a lot of energy, like he’d want to go a lot of places, cook a lot,” his older son Aaron said. “Hang around, watch TV, play outside, so that’s my dad.”
Surveillance cameras showed his Chevy Impala and a gold Cadillac sedan next to each other speeding eastbound on Shadow Creek Parkway, police said.
A witness told investigators the cars stopped under State Highway 288 and there appeared to be an interaction or conversation of some sort between the two drivers.
The witness then reported seeing the man driving the Cadillac reach his arm out the window and fire one round into the passenger window of Anderson’s car.
Police do not know a motive but haven’t ruled out road rage.
“These types of violent crimes do not happen in our city,” Ofc. Chad Rogers said.
In the last five years, the City of Pearland has had nine murders total. In each of the last two years, only one homicide has been reported.
You can track crime data for your Pearland neighborhood here.
The rarity of this case has prompted the police department to put out a warning and ask for the community’s help, while the Anderson family is also pleading for answers.
"We’re going to do whatever we have to do. But we will find or help find the person that did this because he had a family and we loved him deeply,” his mother, Tammy Anderson said. “I don’t know why that senseless thing happened that night. You took my child’s life for no reason.”
Christina Anderson said she’s had a hard time going anywhere around Pearland without breaking down and thinking about her late husband.
“Whoever did this, please, someone that knows something, please reach out,” Christina Anderson said.
Police told KPRC 2 they can’t entirely rule out a remaining threat to the public because they believe the suspect is very dangerous, but there isn’t believed to be a direct threat.
You can report tips anonymously to Brazoria County Crime Stoppers at 1-800-460-2222.