A Texas attorney accused of fatally shooting his adult son with Down syndrome and then cremating his body has claimed he accidentally mistook him for an intruder.
Michael C. Howard, 68, of Houston, is charged with murder and tampering with evidence in the death of 20-year-old Mark Randall Howard, Sabine County Sheriff’s Office Deputy J.P. MacDonough said at a press conference Thursday.
The incident occurred late on Sunday, when both father and son were at the family’s lake house near the Toledo Bend Reservoir, some 200 miles north of Houston.
Howard called the Sabine County Sheriff’s Office on Monday to say he had “accidentally” shot his son and then placed his body “in the front-loading bucket of a backhoe tractor and carried it to a remote area on his property,” about 2 miles from where he said the shooting took place.
Howard then placed his son’s body “on a pile of wood and other burnable material, which had been previously set up and then cremated his son,” MacDonough said.
The attorney reported told investigators he did so because he felt it was what his son “would have wanted.”
When deputies arrived at the scene, Howard showed them the shotgun he said was used in the “horrible accident” and indicated where he’d “cremated” the victim.
After obtaining a search warrant, deputies found what they believed to “body parts and bones — specifically a portion of the lower jaw” belonging to Howard’s son.
MacDonough said it appeared the scene of the shooting had been “washed and cleaned” with a water hose.
“It is a bizarre crime anywhere you are just because of the nature of the event,” MacDonough said. “Mr. Howard committed this act and in the furtherance of that, burned the body and cleaned the crime scene, which as an investigator, I would take as indicative of nefarious purposes or for nefarious purposes.”
Howard is being held on a $20 million bond.