The suspect in 11-year-old Audrii Cunningham’s death is a family friend who lived in a camper on her family’s property in Texas and has an extensive criminal history.
Don Steven McDougal, 42, was named as a person of interest as authorities investigated Cunningham’s disappearance last week.
Polk County District Attorney Shelly Sitton said on Tuesday that her office plans to charge McDougal with capital murder. He is a friend of Cunningham’s father and lived in a camper behind where the girl lived with her father, grandparents and other family members, authorities said.
Cunningham’s family reported her missing on Thursday after she failed to return after school to her home in Livingston. Her body was found on Tuesday during a search in the Trinity River in a rural area north of Houston, about 10 miles from her home. The girl’s body was taken to the Harris County medical examiner’s office in Houston to determine the cause of death.
Polk County Police Department, Texas
McDougal was arrested on Friday on an unrelated assault charge. He remains in jail on that charge. It was not clear if he had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
At a press conference, Polk County Sheriff Byron Lyons said McDougal was supposed to take Cunningam to the bus stop on Thursday morning. He was the last person to see her before she disappeared, Lyons said.
He had taken her the bus stop in the past or would take her to school if she missed the bus, Lyons said.
Lyons said McDougal told investigators he left Cunningham’s home with her that morning, but refused to say if he dropped her off at the bus stop.
Newsweek has contacted the Polk County District Attorney’s Office for further comment via email.
Photos posted on social media show McDougal is heavily tattooed, and has a tattoo of a swastika on his left shoulder.
He has an extensive criminal history, including one for enticing a child. Authorities have said he was not required to be on a sex offender register after the child enticement conviction stemming from a 2007 incident.
His record also includes convictions for theft, driving while intoxicated, unauthorized use of a vehicle, drug possession, and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, The Daily Beast reported.
Elic Bryan III, who worked with McDougal at an auto repair shop, said he was almost stabbed by McDougal in 2010.
“He got drunk one night,” Bryan told Fox 26. “We threw him out of the house, and he came back with a knife, slashed tires, tried to stab me with the knife. I had to run him off with a gun and the cops finally came out with dogs and got him.”
Bryan also said he wished he had shot McDougal that night.
“That’s my one regret,” he said. “Didn’t want to do it then because it would make you feel bad. But looking back, maybe I should have. With all the allegations against him, he’s not a nice guy, apparently. Something is wrong with him in the head.”
McDougal spent a week in Harris County jail after his most recent conviction on a harassment charge in 2020.
The victim in that case was McDougal’s former employer Ted Booher, who runs a trash-hauling company in La Porte.
Booher told The Daily Beast that McDougal threatened to kill him in August 2020 because he believed he had been underpaid.
“He come at me, threatened to kill me and everything over 50 f****** dollars,” Booher said. “Can you believe that s***? He’s a bad apple. He ain’t worth a damn.”
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.