Deadly hurricane exposed brutal murder of mum who criticised husband in bedroom

A brutal murder could have turned out to be the perfect crime – if it hadn't been for a devastating hurricane, and heartbreaking testimony from a seven-year-old girl

The brutal murder of a mother-of-two by her jealous ex-husband almost went answered – were it not for a hurricane.

Crystal McDowell had overcome an incredibly difficult childhood to forge a successful career as a real estate broker. The True Crime Stories podcast explains: “Crystal McDowell's life was full of turmoil and adversity from the beginning. Born to parents who had named her after the drug crystal meth, she faced a challenging childhood.

“Her parents who died within six months of each other when Crystal was just 11 years old succumbed to complications from AIDS, which they contracted through substance abuse.”

Crystal suffered another horrific setback when she was just at the age of 13. She was abducted by a sex offender who kept her in a chicken coop and subjected her to a sustained sexual assault. Crystal managed to outwit her captor and escape, showing determination and presence of mind that typified her adult life.

Crystal managed to get a job as an airline flight attendant and then went on to meet and marry Steve McDowell, a popular character described by friends as being “like a big kid,” with a love of fast cars and video games.

The couple seemed blissfully happy, and welcomed two children, who they named Madden and Maui. But by the time Steve and Crystal were approaching their tenth anniversary, major cracks had appeared in the marriage.

Chambers County District Attorney Cheryl Lieck told Dateline that Crystal’s jet-setting job came with significant temptations. They explained: “She had numerous lovers throughout her marriage, men and women.”

Crystal and Steve decided to call it a day, but the family home they shared needed some significant upgrades if they were to make the maximum profit when they sold it. They made the decision to separate as a couple, but continue living together until the house was ready to sell.

Crystal, now 37 and working in real estate, dived back into the dating scene. Still, from the outside, she and Steve seemed to be managing the difficult situation quite well. Within six months Crystal began dating a jeweller named Paul Hargrave, and friends told CBS News that she was the happiest they had ever seen her.

On August 25th 2017 Crystal was due to meet up with her family to watch the highly anticipated Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor fight on TV. But she never arrived. The last sight of her alive was grainy CCTV image that showed her getting into her black Mercedes outside Hargrave’s house early that morning.

Crystal’s uncle reported her missing, but before any search could get under way, Hurricane Harvey struck. Making landfall in Texas and Louisiana, the massive storm caused catastrophic flooding and more than 100 deaths.

Police resources were inevitably pulled away from the search for the missing woman, and it was left to Crystal’s family to try to keep the investigation going. In what turned out to be the turning-point in the investigation, Crystal’s cousin Jade received a tip telling them that a car resembling Crystal’s Mercedes had been dumped outside a motel.

Despite difficult conditions, the podcast explains, investigators managed to reach the motel. He continued: “[Crystal’s] car was parked haphazardly in the parking lot with the keys in the ignition – it appeared that whoever left Crystal's car there did so with the intention of having it stolen.”

With the case now increasingly looking like a murder inquiry, Chambers County Deputy Cody Hammes was sent to interview Crystal’s ex-husband. He recalled that Steve “didn’t appear to be acting normal, per se.” Despite the divorce, Steve was still wearing his wedding ring and appeared a little too calm in the circumstances.

But detectives also had doubts about Hargrave, who told them he’d been in the shower when Crystal left on that fateful morning, and hadn’t actually seen her leave. He provided evidence, in the form of CCTV footage form outside his house – but handed it direct to the media rather than to police.

To complicate matters, both men failed lie detector tests. A search of the area was massively complicated by the after-effects of Hurricane Harvey and the investigation was effectively stalled at that point.

But a patient re-examination of the motel’s CCTV footage revealed that Crystal’s car had been dumped by a man closely resembling her ex-husband Steve. After a series of interviews, Steve made an extraordinary offer to prosecutors – if they would let him spend one last night at home with his children, he would lead police to Crystal’s body in the morning.

It was a huge risk – Steve could potentially harm himself, or find some way of escaping – but the District Attorney approved the deal. The gamble paid off, though, and on the following morning Steve confessed that he’d had a furious row with Crystal, who had told him she’d been unfaithful throughout the marriage because “he wasn’t dominant enough in the bedroom”.

Steve claimed that he had strangled his ex-wife in a fit of “sudden passion” – which under Texas law carried a lesser penalty than pre-meditated murder. In another shocking twist, at Steve’s eventual trial, prosecutors called the couple’s seven-year-old daughter Maui as a witness.

In videotaped testimony, the podcast says, Maui told how “her parents were engaged in a heated argument about Crystal being with another man”. They added: “She testified that during the fight she saw her father place his hands over her mother's nose and mouth. Maui stated that she witnessed her mother struggling to breathe and eventually losing consciousness.

“After her mother stopped moving Maui claimed that her father told her to stay inside her bedroom and not to tell anybody about what she had just witnessed.”

That eyewitness account proved to be damning, Steve's "sudden passion" defence was rejected and he was sentenced to 50 years in prison.

Texas Ranger Steven Jeter later told Dateline that if the hurricane hadn’t stopped someone from stealing Crystal’s black Mercedes, they may never have been able to solve the crime. “His plan fell apart with the rain,” Jeter said.