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Texas lawyer allegedly killed and cremated son, saying he mistook him for intruder

By Debra Cassens Weiss

December 9, 2024, 9:52 am CST

A Houston lawyer is accused of waiting about 17 hours to call police after allegedly killing his son and burning his body on a woodpile at his weekend home in Sabine County, Texas.

Texas lawyer Michael C. Howard, 68, was charged with murder and tampering with evidence after telling a Sabine County sheriff’s deputy that he shot his son, Mark Randall Howard, on Dec. 1 after mistaking him for an intruder, report Houston Public Media, the Independent, KBTX, KTRE and Fox 26 Houston.

Howard said he placed the body in the front-loading bucket of a backhoe tractor before taking it to a wood trash pile more than a mile away where he cremated it, sheriff’s investigator JP MacDonough said at a press conference. Howard said his son would have wanted cremation.

MacDonough also said the crime scene appeared to have been hosed off, which “I would take as indicative of nefarious purposes,” according to Houston Public Media.

Paul Robbins, the district attorney for Sabine and San Augustine counties, said he will seek a grand jury indictment with additional charges, including desecration or mishandling of a corpse, according to Houston Public Media.

A sheriff’s deputy was previously called to the property Nov. 29 in response to a report of a burglary in which a tractor and a trailer were stolen.

Howard’s son had been diagnosed with high-functioning Down syndrome.

According to the State Bar of Texas, Howard’s practice areas include ethics and legal malpractice, family law, litigation, personal injury, real estate and oil-and-gas law.

He was suspended in 1995 after pleading no contest to third-degree felony theft, according to the Texas Supreme Court Board of Disciplinary Appeals. The suspension was to last during the one-year probation term in the criminal case.

A 25-year-old man in Missouri was arrested after he allegedly shot and killed his own mother, saying he believed she was an intruder as she tried to get in the back door of the home where they both lived. Jaylen Johnson was taken into custody last week and charged with one count of manslaughter and one count of armed criminal action in the slaying of 56-year-old Monica Johnson-McNichols, authorities announced.

According to a news release from the Olivette Police Department, officers at about 7:20 a.m. on Thursday, March 7, responded to an emergency call regarding a shooting the occurred at a residence located in the 9600 block of Huron Drive, which is about 10 miles west of St. Louis.

Upon arriving at the scene, first responders found a female victim — later identified as Johnson-McNichols — suffering from what appeared to be a gunshot wound. Olivette paramedics arrived a short while later and attempted to resuscitate the victim but she succumbed to her injury and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Charging documents from the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office state that Johnson “knowingly or with the purpose of causing serious physical injury” caused the death of his mother with the “assistance or aid of a deadly weapon.”

“During the early morning hours of March 7, 2024, the suspect, Jaylen Johnson, shot and killed Monica McNichols-Johnson while she was trying to gain entry to the residence,” the filing states. Police also wrote that they believe Johnson “poses a danger to the community.”