AUSTIN, Texas — A new bill would change the requirements for registering as a sex offender in Texas.
House Bill 2000 was filed Wednesday by Republican Rep. Trent Ashby of Rusk County and named after 11-year-old Audrii Cunningham who was brutally murdered in 2024.
Currently, Texas law does not require someone convicted of enticing a child, or similar child grooming offenses, to register as a sex offender. It’s a loophole that helped Don Steven McDougal avoid the sex offender registry in 2007.
McDougal was accused of trying to molest a young girl but struck a plea deal to the lesser charge of enticing a child. When Cunningham went missing in 2024, McDougal was identified as a person of interest as a friend of the family who also lived behind the family’s home.
Cunningham, a fifth-grade student in Livingston ISD, was found dead in the Trinity River after an extensive search. Officials determined her cause of death as “homicidal violence including blunt head trauma.”
McDougal eventually struck a plea deal for killing Cunningham to avoid the death penalty. As part of the agreement, he will serve a life sentence but won’t be able to appeal or seek parole.
“It is unconscionable that a violent criminal like McDougal was able to walk the streets without registering as a sex offender,” Ashby told The Lufkin Daily News. “Criminals with a history like McDougal need to be on a publicly available list so that people can protect themselves and their families from tragedies like what occurred in Polk County.”
While the law aims to close such loopholes, Ashby’s bill would only apply to offenses committed on or after Sept. 1, 2025.