Lawyer Kills Son, Burns Body Before Claiming ‘Horrible Accident’: Police

A Houston attorney allegedly shot his adult son and then burnt his body on a wood pile before calling police the next morning, roughly 17 hours later, to tell them about what he claimed was a “horrible accident,” authorities say.

Michael Howard, 68, was arrested Monday and charged with one count of murder and another of tampering with evidence, Sabine County investigator JP MacDonough told reporters at a press conference Thursday.

The deceased son, Mark Howard, was 20 years old and had been diagnosed with Down syndrome, according to MacDonough, who described the victim as a “high functioning” individual who held a job.

Howard allegedly told police he had “mistaken” his son Mark “for an intruder at his property” and shot him, according to MacDonough.

MacDonough said Howard showed officers around his property when they arrived at the scene and provided them with the shotgun he allegedly used to shoot his son before leading them to the wood pile roughly two miles away where his son’s burned body was.

Howard “had taken the body of the deceased, placed it in the front loading bucket of a backhoe tractor, and carried it to a remote area on his property and placed the body on a pile of wood and other burnable material, which had been previously set up and then, his words, ‘cremated’ his son in accordance with what he felt his son would have wanted,” MacDonough alleged.

MacDonough alleged that it also appeared the scene of the shooting had been “washed” with “a water hose.”

The investigator told reporters that Howard said “the whole thing was a horrible accident.”

“It is a bizarre crime,” MacDonough said. “Mr. Howard committed this act and then in the furtherance of that, burned the body and then cleaned the crime scene, which as an investigator I would take as indicative of nefarious purposes.”

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Howard’s wife, the victim’s mother, and his two other children were not home at the time of the shooting, according to police.

The sheriff’s office investigator said there have been previous police calls from the Howard property, one as recently as Friday, Nov. 29 — two days before the alleged shooting — in which the elder Howard told police he had a trailer stolen.

Texas District Attorney Paul Robbins told reporters his office is looking into possible additional charges, including the desecration and mishandling of a corpse as well as other charges related to tampering with the scene of a crime.

Howard is in custody at a Sabine County jail with his bond set at $10 million per charge. It wasn’t immediately clear if he has entered a plea and PEOPLE was not immediately able to reach an attorney for him.