Watch: Parker County sheriff shares updates on triple homicide investigation
The Parker County sheriff says two suspects arrested in a triple homicide lived in the same area as the victims and planned the killings to rob a couple of drugs and money.
Investigators believe the third victim, who was staying at the couple’s home, was killed because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, Sheriff Russ Authier said at a news conference on Thursday, May 1.
Husband and wife Tiffany Ann Williams, 44, and David Dewayne Walker, 42, and their house guest Robbie Allen Head, 55, were shot and killed on April 19 during the robbery at the couple’s home, investigators said. The suspects are accused of wrapping up the victims’ bodies and leaving them near a creek in nearby Hood County, where they were found several days later.
Two suspects, 19-year-old Barrett Copeland and 27-year-old Trin Lawrence McKnight, face capital murder charges in the case. The charges have been dismissed against another man who had been arrested.
Authier said on Thursday that there were a lot of different “puzzle pieces” with this investigation.
When asked if the suspects and victims knew each other, Authier said they lived in the same area in the small community, near Lake Country Acres.
McKnight and Copeland went to the house to rob Williams and Walker, and Head just happened to be there and he got caught up in the robbery as a “victim of circumstance at a wrong place and a wrong time,” Authier said.
The suspects were looking for money and drugs, the sheriff said, adding that much of the crime in the North Texas county involves drugs and specifically methamphetamine. “Drugs are, unfortunately, at the heart of just about every problem in society today. So it’s going to be a huge part of this,” he said.
In their interviews with investigators, the suspects also said they hoped to take over the victims’ rental home after their deaths.
The killings have had an impact on a lot of people in the small community, the sheriff said.
The victims are “mothers, brothers, fathers, sisters to somebody,” Authier said. “Their families are grieving, and we feel sorry for them.”
“The suspects have families as well, and they made some very bad decisions, and it’s going to affect a lot of people for a long time,” he said.
Authier said he thinks at least one of the suspects had been to the victims’ home before. “So I don’t think it was a surprise that the victims actually saw the suspects,” he said.
The investigators believe that they’ve now arrested everyone involved, Authier said.
One man who initially was arrested has been cleared of any involvement and released from jail, he said. Based on co-conspirator statements and confessions made by the other suspects, the investigators initially believed Dennis Alexander, 45, was involved.
Alexander had ties to the area and ties to the victims’ residence, Authier said. “Subsequent interviews and confessions later, we realized he wasn’t” involved, he said.
Copeland and McKnight gave false information to authorities that initially led to Alexander being identified as a suspect, investigators said.
Another suspect, Micheal Morris, 18, has been arrested in the case. Morris is accused of helping to move the bodies and he faces charges of tampering with physical evidence with intent to impair a human corpse, abuse of a corpse, and failure to report a felony, the Parker County Sheriff’s Office said on Wednesday.
The three suspects remain incarcerated in the Parker County Jail. Bonds for McKnight and Copeland have been set at $1 million each. Morris’ recommended bond is $38,000, according to jail records.