James Lewis Spencer III and Sean Connery Showers
A 24-year-old man is behind bars for murder, accused of targeting a registered sex offender.
James Lewis Spencer III was arrested by the Gulf Coast Violent Offenders Task Force without incident on Wednesday, according to Houston police.
Early in the morning of May 29, 2023, someone called about a lifeless body in the ditch, later identified as 37-year-old Sean Connery Showers.
Surveillance video in the area allowed investigators to determine that a car drove up at about 3:50 a.m., stopped, and within four seconds fired numerous "automatic-like" shots and sped off, according to a search warrant.
Investigators said they found Showers' phone under his body and found that he had planned to meet up with someone at Montie Beach Park.
"(Spencer and Showers) were communicating using a social media app," Rehman Merchant, the chief prosecutor for the 179th District Court, said. "The communications were sexual in nature. The officers believe that they were meeting up at this park to engage in sexual activity."
Merchant said that based on the conversations on the Kik app, Spencer was posing as someone underage in the conversation.
"There are some communications on the phones or between the two about (Showers') dealings or past interactions with children or underage individuals," Merchant said.
Showers pleaded guilty to a federal charge of child porn possession in 2009 and was sentenced to 30 months in prison. He was also required to register as a sex offender for life, records show.
After phone records pointed investigators to Spencer, they were able to speak with his girlfriend, who said that he made comments around the time of the murder about pedophiles.
"(A) third party states (Spencer) told them he believed police were not doing enough to keep pedophiles incarcerated and (Spencer) wanted to rob and harm those type of men because they would do bad things to little children and other people and he knew how to track them by an app on the phone," Spencer's bail order reads. "A month later, defendant made the same comment that 'if the cops were not going to do anything, maybe he should kill them himself.'"
Spencer's phone was tracked to and from the murder location, and he admitted to being at the murder location "a few times," records say.
"Based on the conversation he had with the girlfriend, that sort of comment he had made 'pedophiles' in the plural," Merchant said. "As of now, we're still investigating that."
Man accused of killing sex offender said police not doing enough against pedophiles, records allege
The suspect's girlfriend said he made comments about pedophiles around the time of the murder and later said, "if the cops were not going to do anything, maybe he should kill them himself," according to records.
