272. Murder In The Hurricane - Crystal McDowell

In this episode, Payton and Garrett cover a murder case that was nearly covered up by the perfect storm. Links: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/murderwithmyhusband NEW MERCH LINK: https://mwmhshop.com Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/themwmh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/murderwithmyhusband/ Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@murderwithmyhusband Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/into-the-dark/id1662304327 Listen on spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/36SDVKB2MEWpFGVs9kRgQ7?si=f5224c9fd99542a7 Case Sources: CBSNews.com - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/48-hours-goes-inside-the-search-for-mom-who-vanished-ahead-of-hurricane-harvey/ InvestigationDiscovery.com - https://www.investigationdiscovery.com/crimefeed/murder/ex-husband-of-realtor-who-went-missing-before-hurricane-harvey-charged-with-murder OutSmartMagazine.com - https://www.outsmartmagazine.com/2019/08/baytown-womans-murder-case-is-solved/ ChillingCrimes.com - https://www.chillingcrimes.com/blogs/news/crystal-mcdowell Yahoo.com - https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/disappearance-crystal-mcdowell-happened-texas-135149079.html ABC13.com - https://abc13.com/hurricane-harvey-baytown-realtor-crystal-mcdowell-chambers-county/5345919/ EntertainmentNow.com - https://entertainmentnow.com/news/crystall-mcdowell-kids-now-2020-update/ NBCNews.com - https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/missing-in-america/body-missing-texas-realtor-crystal-seratte-mcdowell-found-ex-husband-n800061 Mirror.co.uk - https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/deadly-hurricane-exposed-brutal-murder-33859812 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:29Speaker 01

  Great meeting. Who took notes? Anyone?

• 0:33Speaker 02

  With Monday Note Taker, the meeting ends and the plan already exists. Action items, owners, deadlines. Go to monday.com, the AI workspace platform.

• 0:44Payton Moreland?

  You're listening to an Ono Media Podcast. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder with My Husband. I'm Payton Moreland.

• 0:51Garrett Moreland?

  And I'm Garrett Moreland.

• 0:52Payton Moreland?

  And he's the husband.

• 0:53Garrett Moreland?

  And I'm the husband. Happy Monday. Welcome back. New Monday, new episode. We're here with you guys. Today's gonna be a good episode. Reminder, if you want bonus content, to check out our Patreon and Apple subscriptions. It's also all out of free. Thank you for supporting us. Thank you for loving us. Sorry for laughing. I looked to my left and I saw Daisy doing something crazy in the backyard.

• 1:19Payton Moreland?

  Well, now she's pooping.

• 1:21Garrett Moreland?

  She's pooping?

• 1:22Payton Moreland?

  I see her, yeah. Good for her.

• 1:25Garrett Moreland?

  Good for her. Good for her.

• 1:26Payton Moreland?

  All right. Do you have your 10 seconds?

• 1:28Garrett Moreland?

  For my 10 seconds, nothing too crazy, but something that I was thinking about is, I was thinking about like, currently Peyton and I live in Utah, for those who don't know. And, you know, I feel like for the most part, it has four seasons. We have a winter, we have a little bit of a spring, look, we have a pretty decent fall, and then we have a summer. Something I hate everywhere, no matter where I'm at, is wind. I hate wind. I'm, I hate it. Like, I feel like wind just ruins everything. I'm not talking about a little breeze.

• 2:04Garrett Moreland?

  I'm talking about wind. That just reminded me, oh, nevermind. I don't think you'll get it.

• 2:09Payton Moreland?

  What?

• 2:10Garrett Moreland?

  In Ted Lasso, when he says, talking about practice.

• 2:15Speaker 05

  Not the game. We're talking about practice.

• 2:18Garrett Moreland?

  But I know there'll be a lot of people out there that get this and they'll laugh at that.

• 2:21Payton Moreland?

  What does practice have to do with anything?

• 2:23Garrett Moreland?

  It's the way I said it. I'm talking about wind.

• 2:26Payton Moreland?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:27Garrett Moreland?

  You know what? I think we need to take a 20 minute break so I can show Payne that episode on Ted Lasso. And then we'll come back and record the episode.

• 2:34Payton Moreland?

  I would rather, I just, no, I don't want to watch that.

• 2:37Garrett Moreland?

  For anyone who watches Ted Lasso, you know what I'm talking about. Anyways, that's my 10 seconds. That is my rant. Let's get into this week's episode.

• 2:45Payton Moreland?

  Our sources for this episode are CBS News, Investigation Discovery, Outsmart Magazine, Chilling Crimes, Yahoo, ABC13.com, EntertainmentNow.com, NBC News, Mirror.co.uk. There are a lot of cold cases out there. And that's because covering up a crime is sometimes easier than most of us think. I can't even count how many times we've seen very obvious suspects walk free on this show. And how even the weakest covers have managed to keep a case out of court. I'm talking shoddy alibis, a lack of good motive, destroyed or tampered with evidence.

• 3:24Payton Moreland?

  But every now and again, we see a really lucky cover just seemingly fall into the perpetrator's lap. A faulty eyewitness description that throws detectives off scent. A critical piece of evidence that was never bagged or tagged. Or, as we'll see in today's case, Mother Nature herself, running interference on the investigation. And while she may have created the perfect storm for detectives, the sun did eventually come out, shedding light on the person truly responsible for a young mother's death. So take a ride with me now to Baytown, Texas, about 26 miles east of Houston.

• 4:10Payton Moreland?

  We are in the year 2017 and 38-year-old Crystal McDowell is finally getting the happiness she deserves in life. Crystal, a local real estate agent, is getting back into the dating scene after a recent divorce. She's dating someone new and for what may be the first time in her life, she's actually waking up every day really happy. She's excited about the future, about what this new relationship will become. And that's something a bit foreign to Crystal, who had it unbelievably hard for most of her life. So let me back up a bit and tell you who Crystal McDowell is. Crystal has, from what I can tell, spent most of her

• 4:55Payton Moreland?

  life in Texas, but her childhood was anything but picturesque. Crystal was born to two parents with a pretty big drug problem, and her parents' drug of choice was crystal meth, to be specific. And some sources say that she was actually named after this because her name is Crystal, but her uncle begs to differ, saying Crystal was actually named after her grandmother. I feel like that's a pretty weird thing for sources to report. It might just be like

• 5:26Garrett Moreland?

  naming your kid after crystal meth?

• 5:28Payton Moreland?

  Yeah. Nonetheless, this sort of rampant drug abuse in the home, of course, made things challenging for Crystal, who didn't have any siblings that she could rely on. And when she turned 11, things only got worse. That year, both of Crystal's parents passed away from complications from AIDS related to their addictions. They actually died within six months of each other, which meant now Crystal was on her own. I'm not sure where Crystal lived for the next two years, or what her life was even like at that time, but I know the hard times weren't over yet because when Crystal turned 13, another unthinkable

• 6:09Payton Moreland?

  tragedy happened. She was abducted by a sex trafficker. And I'm not sure how long Crystal was taken for, but I know she was forced to live in a chicken coop while she was subjected to sexual assault. Yeah.

• 6:23Garrett Moreland?

  Sorry, we just went from zero to 100.

• 6:25Payton Moreland?

  And she's only 13.

• 6:27Garrett Moreland?

  Okay.

• 6:27Payton Moreland?

  But Crystal managed to outsmart her kidnappers. She escaped. And after that, she went to live with her aunt and uncle.

• 6:34Garrett Moreland?

  Is this real? Like, is this confirmed? Like confirmed sources like

• 6:38Payton Moreland?

  Yeah, she literally had an awful life.

• 6:41Garrett Moreland?

  Holy crap.

• 6:42Payton Moreland?

  Um, so she goes and lives with her aunt and uncle Jeff Walters and his wife, where it seemed like she finally was on a happier path. Crystal went to school and then went on to become a flight attendant for the next 10 years. Eventually she decided it was time for a change and began working in real estate instead. But even before that career move, Crystal met someone she was certain was her knight in shining armor. A man who swept her off her feet and promised her a life she'd only ever dreamed of. A man named Steve McDowell. Now, a lot of people who knew Steve said he was kind of like a big kid at heart. He loved video games and sports cars.

• 7:24Payton Moreland?

  But more than anything, he really did seem to love Crystal. Friends said he almost had an obsession with her. He would give her massages and rub her feet at the end of a long day. He would brush her hair if she asked, to the point where people actually said his obsession with Crystal, despite her being his girlfriend, seemed a little unhealthy. But that meant that Crystal was definitely the one in control of the relationship, even after they got married in 2007. It also didn't hurt that she seemed to be the breadwinner for the family. Crystal was the one who went to work, while Steve did a lot of parenting for their two children they eventually had.

• 8:03Garrett Moreland?

  I'm trying to figure out, maybe it's just a hindsight sort of thing, but you know how they were saying, despite them being in a relationship, he was just so obsessed with her?

• 8:13Payton Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 8:14Garrett Moreland?

  I feel like that's just because they know what happens at the end of this case and we don't. You know what I'm saying? Because like normally you look at a relationship and you're like, oh, they're obsessed with each other. Like, no big deal.

• 8:25Payton Moreland?

  Well, I don't think Crystal was obsessed with him, which is why they're saying it was unhealthy. Because he was like, would have done anything she said. She wore the pants in the relationship type thing.

• 8:37Garrett Moreland?

  Okay.

• 8:38Payton Moreland?

  So maybe they thought he was getting run over a little bit and that's why they're claiming that?

• 8:41Garrett Moreland?

  I don't know.

• 8:42Payton Moreland?

  Either way, that's what people in their life said. So they had two children, a little boy who was born in 2009 named Madden, and a little girl born in 2012 named Maui. And for a while, this dynamic seemed to work for the couple. They loved vacationing and going on adventures. For Crystal's 33rd birthday, Steve even took her on a skydiving trip. But by 10 years into their marriage, it was clear that things had stopped working as well as they were. Cracks were forming. Crystal was putting some distance between her and Steve. It honestly just seemed like all the romance had fizzled. Crystal, who was ambitious and driven, might have even built up a bit of resentment for Steve,

• 9:26Payton Moreland?

  who never really helped out financially. And eventually, Crystal filed for divorce. And honestly, from the outside, it looked pretty amicable. The former couple had plans to sell their home and part ways. But first, they wanted to fix it up and make some changes so they could get the best price for it.

• 9:45Garrett Moreland?

  Okay.

• 9:46Payton Moreland?

  And in the meantime, Crystal helped Steve buy something else. And then he offered to have her move in there while renovations were being done to their old family home. So while the two were finalizing their divorce in June of 2017, they were still living together, which was especially interesting considering Crystal was already dating someone new. So they move out of their family home to do renovations. They're getting divorced. Crystal ends up moving back in with Steve in a place she's paying for for Steve and the kids.

• 10:22Garrett Moreland?

  Okay.

• 10:23Payton Moreland?

  But she's dating someone new while living with her soon-to-be ex-husband.

• 10:29Garrett Moreland?

  All right.

• 10:30Payton Moreland?

  So six months after separating from Steve, Crystal had begun seeing a jeweler named Paul Hargrave.

• 10:38Payton Moreland?

  And according to Crystal's friends, this was the most upbeat they had ever seen her. Crystal literally posted on her Facebook page in the summer of 2017 saying, quote, "I've never been happier in my whole life than I am right now." Crystal and Paul seemed to really balance each other out, and Paul made up for a lot of the things that Steve lacked. He and Crystal were also making plans for a future together. They were booking a trip to Belgium for the end of summer 2017. It also helped that Crystal's real estate business seemed to be doing better than ever. But there might have been some concerns around her properties come the end of August that year.

• 11:21Payton Moreland?

  Because a huge storm was headed towards Baytown, Texas, both literally and figuratively. Hurricane Harvey was picking up speed in the Atlantic, and it was moving towards North America fast. As Crystal and the rest of Texas kept an eye on the growing storm, she continued her plans as usual on August 25th. That morning, she woke up after spending the night at Paul's house. She planned to go pick up her kids at Steve's place that morning, and then was going to meet up with Paul after work to watch the highly anticipated Mayweather-McGregor fight.

• 12:00Garrett Moreland?

  I remember watching that fight. Yeah, it's about it. I mean, I have opinions on it, but it was so long ago. Who cares? Entertaining, entertaining.

• 12:08Payton Moreland?

  So Crystal got dressed and left Paul's house at around 7:35 that morning in her black Mercedes. But over the course of the day, people were texting Crystal, and she wasn't answering them back. Which was weird because Crystal's really fast to respond. She's on her phone all the time for work as a real estate agent.

• 12:29Garrett Moreland?

  That's true.

• 12:30Payton Moreland?

  And while it's a little alarming, the bells don't go off until that night when Crystal never makes it back to Paul's house to watch the fight. And that's when Paul calls Crystal's uncle, the one who practically raised her after her parents passed away, Jeff Walters. Now, of course, after hearing that Crystal was on her way to Steve's place that morning before she was last seen, Once Paul calls Jeff, Jeff reaches out to him and Steve, her ex, soon to be ex-husband, tells him, "Yeah, she sent me a message this morning at 7:01. He received a text that said, "On my way. Do you have water? Looks like I may stay here with the kids. It seems just like

• 13:11Payton Moreland?

  rain because of the storm. It seemed like Crystal was maybe changing her plans for the weekend. As Steve said, she wrote something about how she was coming to get the kids and was going to take them to Dallas. Only after that, after these texts, she never arrived." Now, I don't know what was in Dallas or why Crystal was going to take the kids there, especially with this huge storm headed their way. Maybe it was to get out of the line of fire, but there's a major sense of urgency here. They need to find Crystal fast because Hurricane Harvey is making landfall basically as soon as she goes missing. So her uncle reports her missing the following morning, but the police don't even get a chance to do much

• 13:53Payton Moreland?

  because the storm picks up pace and within a matter of hours of them reporting her missing, Baytown, Texas is already experiencing major damage.

• 14:04Garrett Moreland?

  What a...

• 14:05Payton Moreland?

  Horrible timing. I mean...

• 14:08Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, horrible timing because...

• 14:09Payton Moreland?

  There's gonna be no resources.

• 14:11Garrett Moreland?

  No, the police can't help. Just everything, everything about it. Absolutely horrible timing.

• 14:16Payton Moreland?

  How do you go out looking for your loved one?

• 14:18Garrett Moreland?

  Unfortunately, too, a good time to get away with murder.

• 14:20Payton Moreland?

  Which is why I started the case the way I did.

• 14:22Garrett Moreland?

  Yep.

• 14:23Speaker 06

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• 14:49Payton Moreland?

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• 15:32Garrett Moreland?

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• 16:04Payton Moreland?

  So over the next day or two, there's catastrophic conditions in Texas and Louisiana. We are talking major flooding and more than 100 deaths are reported. Meanwhile, the local police have a missing persons case. They need to start investigating, which is of course, hard to do when you have a storm and rain that will not stop. I mean, you have detectives who are literally being flooded out of their homes. So what do Crystal's friends and family do? They have to start investigating in their own ways. Uncle Jeff really takes the lead on this. He starts posting on Facebook to see if anyone's seen or heard from Crystal. Paul and Jeff also post a $15,000 reward on social media

• 16:46Payton Moreland?

  for anyone that might have valuable information about or whereabouts. But by Sunday, August 27th, Crystal's friends and family are starting to get frustrated with the police's lack of efforts to find Crystal. But you have to think, I mean, these are unprecedented situations. And when you have police officers who are literally fighting for their own homes and their own lives and families, how do they go out looking for Crystal at this time? It's a difficult situation. And so tensions between police and Jeff Walters only heighten when Jeff hires a P I to do the job, who apparently goes through Steve's townhouse, searching for evidence before police ever even go through Steve's townhouse, which is basically the place she was last known to be going.

• 17:32Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 17:32Payton Moreland?

  Eventually, the storm passes and the local police have to start taking Crystal's case more seriously. Now, hearing that she's recently divorced, the first person they call in for questioning is Steve McDowell. But Steve reassures them, "We have a really amicable divorce." Technically, she was even still living with him at their condo while their own house was getting renovated to put on the market. I mean, yes, granted, she slept the night at Paul's house that night, but she stayed at the house with Steve and the kids often.

• 18:01Garrett Moreland?

  There's really no other choice, unfortunately, like it has to be Steve. And if it's not Steve, I'm going to be pretty surprised, but it's gotta be Steve.

• 18:10Payton Moreland?

  So as they're talking to Steve about his wife's disappearance, they find him cooperative, even kind, a little friendly. The only thing that really stands out to them is that Steve is still wearing his wedding band, which says maybe he's not emotionally over it yet, but that's hardly enough for them to hold him on any charges. Right now, there's absolutely nothing else that worries them about Steve, which is why they move on to the other person that's closest to Crystal, and also the last person to technically have seen her that day, her new boyfriend, Paul. Now, Paul is a different story because, like I said, he's the last person they know to have seen Crystal alive. But Paul's like, "Why would I have anything to do with this?

• 18:54Payton Moreland?

  We're happy, we're in love, we even planned a trip to Europe." But police learn this actually wasn't the only trip they had talked about taking. Crystal apparently invited Paul to go on this family cruise, one that Steve was also going on.

• 19:12Payton Moreland?

  Paul apparently tells Crystal, this sounds kinda awkward, maybe you two should just go. But Crystal offers to talk to Steve, says she's gonna see if he'll sit the family vacation out. So her new boyfriend Paul can go instead, basically replacing Steve on this family vacation with Paul.

• 19:29Garrett Moreland?

  Okay, so.

• 19:31Payton Moreland?

  So Paul tells police, listen, Steve wasn't happy about this conversation. I mean, I probably wouldn't be either if my ex-wife was kicking me out of a vacation with my entire family. So while this is a red flag in Paul's eyes, the police don't necessarily agree. Instead, they still sort of feel like Paul's someone who needs to be ruled out, especially when Paul does something a little suspicious, or at the very least, absent-mindedly. Apparently, Paul had security footage from outside his house of Crystal getting into her black Mercedes and driving off that morning.

• 20:07Garrett Moreland?

  Wow.

• 20:07Payton Moreland?

  So proof that she left the house.

• 20:09Garrett Moreland?

  Interesting.

• 20:10Payton Moreland?

  Only, he didn't share this with police when they interviewed him or talked to him. He actually gave the footage to the media when he did an interview with them.

• 20:20Garrett Moreland?

  Well, if he's trying to get away with murder, that is extremely smart.

• 20:25Payton Moreland?

  So the police are thinking, this is shady, why wouldn't he have given this to us to clear his name? And apparently, when they ask for it, it actually takes them a few days to get the footage from Paul. However, there's still not enough for them to be calling either of the guys in her life a suspect. That is, until they follow up on a tip that had been submitted by one of Crystal's friends over social media. So a few days after Crystal goes missing, her abandoned car is spotted in a parking lot of a local Motel 6. Now, police don't have very high hopes of pulling evidence off the vehicle since any prints or DNA would have likely been destroyed or washed away with the hurricane.

• 21:08Payton Moreland?

  But when they get there, they do find something really weird about the car. It's parked in a very messy way, it's not in a spot really, so it's definitely drawing attention. Plus, the car is unlocked and the keys are just sitting on the dashboard inside.

• 21:27Payton Moreland?

  So when police look at this, they're like, this looks staged, almost like whoever left this car wanted it to get stolen. But with the giant hurricane, no one was really looking to steal a car over the weekend. So police tow it out of the parking lot, which is still flooded, by the way, and they bring it in for evidence. But now they're wondering, did Crystal actually leave her car here on purpose? Or did someone do it for her? A question that's answered pretty quickly once they start looking into her phone and credit card records, because they haven't been used since the day she disappeared, which as we know by now on this podcast, is not a good sign. So they go back and revisit some of their best suspects. They speak with Steve,

• 22:09Payton Moreland?

  Uncle Jeff, and Paul again. And both Paul, the new boyfriend, and her Uncle Jeff, who she's close to and kind of helped raise her, are like, listen, you need to look at Steve, the ex-husband. Paul tells police that Crystal seemed afraid of him at times, and was apparently terrified to tell Steve about Paul when they first started dating. And Uncle Jeff says Steve had always creeped him out, that he actually reminds him of Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs.

• 22:38Garrett Moreland?

  Oh, if you, that's freaky.

• 22:40Payton Moreland?

  It's just like, you know, when you just have this feeling about someone's energy.

• 22:44Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, you're just like, something's off.

• 22:45Payton Moreland?

  And both of these guys are like, hey, this is how we feel. It's not that there's really necessarily anything that's done, but this is how we feel. About 10 days after Crystal's disappearance, they decide to give both Paul and Steve a polygraph test. And both of them fail. Now, obviously, this isn't enough to make an arrest, but the police are about to get another big break in the case.

• 23:08Garrett Moreland?

  Wait, that's so ironic, both of them fail?

• 23:10Payton Moreland?

  I know. Honestly, at this point, is it like, I think they only use polygraphs to try to get people to crack.

• 23:16Garrett Moreland?

  It's just an interrogation tactic at this point.

• 23:18Payton Moreland?

  Kind of like in the Chris Watts case, they gave him that polygraph and interrogation, and then came back in and are like, dude, you failed, you need to tell the truth. And then he cracks and tells the truth.

• 23:28Garrett Moreland?

  I feel like enough, there should be enough information and enough people should know by now, like if they're trying to get you to do a polygraph, you just laugh.

• 23:35Payton Moreland?

  Yeah, because it's like.

• 23:37Garrett Moreland?

  Okay.

• 23:38Payton Moreland?

  So they get a big break in the case. They've just gotten access to the security footage from outside the motel six where her car was left. Here's what they find. They learned that the car was parked in the motel parking lot in the early hours of August 26th. So this is less than a day after Crystal originally went missing. And there's a man driving it in the security footage. He gets out of the driver's seat and when they zoom in on this footage, they find that the guy looks a heck of a lot like Crystal's ex-husband, Steve. At first, they aren't totally sure.

• 24:19Payton Moreland?

  They do, however, watch this person take a bag out of the car with them and go over to a trash bin and pull out what looks like clothes before stuffing it in the bin and pushing it to the bottom. Now eventually this guy disappears from the frame. Here's where it gets pretty obvious. A few hours later, a car stops at a gas station across the street that you can still see on this footage. A man gets out, walks over to the motel six and seemingly checks to see if Crystal's black Mercedes is still there. You know who on the car that was parked at the gas station? Cause you might not have enough detail to see the man, but you definitely have enough detail to see what type of car.

• 25:04Payton Moreland?

  Steve, her ex-husband, has the same car. Which means even if he's not involved, he definitely drove to a gas station across from where her car was left abandoned after she went missing and went and looked at her car and never told police.

• 25:21Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, I mean, it's, at this point, I mean, it's a hundred percent Steve. It has to be, has to be, which is insane, by the way.

• 25:29Payton Moreland?

  So police are like, they're pretty sure he is the one in the footage that dropped the car off earlier. Obviously, this doesn't really prove that Steve did anything to Crystal like because they don't have any evidence of murder. So, police rushed back out to the scene to see if they can find any more evidence. They're looking for the bag that he threw in the trash. But when they get there, this bin is empty. Whatever was in it had floated out during the storm, the flooding, it had emptied it. Which leaves detectives with a few options. One of them being, we need to get Steve to confess. But in order to do that, they also need to dig deeper into what was really going on between Steve and Crystal so they can confront him with a motive. And it turns out, Crystal hadn't just filed for divorce from Steve

• 26:13Payton Moreland?

  once. She had actually tried to divorce him twice.

• 26:16Garrett Moreland?

  Wow.

• 26:17Payton Moreland?

  The first time was only a year after they got married in 2008. Apparently, Crystal didn't go through with it because Steve had made some pretty scary threats. He told her he was gonna take his own life if she divorced him. Even Steve's adult daughter from his first marriage before Crystal, said things were not perfect between Crystal and Steve, honestly far from it. She said they were pretty toxic for each other, they drove each other crazy. And when she heard the two were finally calling it quits in 2017, she was relieved. But then, his adult daughter started noticing that Steve was acting a bit off. His daughter said she noticed Steve had changed his profile picture on Facebook to a picture

• 26:58Payton Moreland?

  of a grave, and then the Grim Reaper, and then back to a picture of him and Crystal.

• 27:03Garrett Moreland?

  What the freak?

• 27:04Payton Moreland?

  Before finally not having a picture at all. And this was all in a matter of a couple of days.

• 27:08Garrett Moreland?

  That's wild.

• 27:09Payton Moreland?

  She said, "What is my dad doing?" It was around this time that Crystal actually called 911 in regards to Steve. She told police that he had disappeared with the kids, and he didn't come back with them for several days, which is technically kidnapping. This must have been extremely terrifying for Crystal because in the past, when she told Steve she was gonna leave him, he had made threats to hurt himself. So what if... He was killing their children too. So how can you blame Crystal for staying with him for so long? I mean, she's terrified of what he might do if she leaves. But Steve was clearly very delusional about the whole situation and still very obsessed. Because remember that cruise I mentioned? The one Crystal was taking her family on and she asked Steve if he would stay home so her new boyfriend could come?

• 27:52Payton Moreland?

  Well, apparently Steve was even more upset than she realized because he had big plans for them on that trip. Even though their divorce had already been finalized, he was planning on going on this trip and re-proposing to Crystal on that vacation. He'd bought a new suit and a white dress for her to bring with him in case she said yes.

• 28:10Garrett Moreland?

  She's dating somebody else, man.

• 28:13Payton Moreland?

  So hearing all of this, police are starting to realize maybe Paul's telling the truth.

• 28:17Garrett Moreland?

  Sorry, did you say he bought a suit and a white dress?

• 28:19Payton Moreland?

  Yeah, so they could like-

• 28:20Garrett Moreland?

  She said yes?

• 28:21Payton Moreland?

  Actually do it on the ship, which is just-

• 28:23Garrett Moreland?

  Alright.

• 28:24Payton Moreland?

  So police are now like, hey, there is motive and Crystal has a good reason to be scared of Steve. By this point, police feel confident ruling out Paul as a suspect and now they firmly believe Steve is their guy.

• 28:36Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 28:36Payton Moreland?

  But they still need him to confess if they want to arrest him. And they're calling him in almost every day to talk, but he stays firm, saying, no, I loved Crystal. There's no way I would kill her. I'm innocent. So they need something that concretely puts him at the scene. That shows that he was 100% the guy who dropped Crystal's car off at the Motel 6. Because if they confront him with that, maybe he'll crack. So they start thinking, okay. Obviously, if he drove her car there, he had to get home. And that's when they look around at other security footage in the neighboring area. And they see that the man who dropped off the car actually walked to a nearby Walmart afterwards. He went inside, he came out with a bicycle and then comes out to ride it home.

• 29:19Payton Moreland?

  And after looking closer at the footage inside the store, I mean, this footage is gonna be a lot clearer, a lot closer. They are pretty confident that this, that Steve is their guy. By the way, there's a lot of pressure to get Steve in handcuffs by now because he has custody of the two kids. And investigators are getting worried he might do something to them too, if they don't act fast enough.

• 29:37Garrett Moreland?

  How have we not come out with a better or more regulations around this?

• 29:42Payton Moreland?

  I mean- Josh Powell.

• 29:43Garrett Moreland?

  Because, well, it just happened. It's all over the news right now.

• 29:46Payton Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 29:46Garrett Moreland?

  The guy killed his three daughters and they can't find him.

• 29:49Payton Moreland?

  Yes, it just happens a lot.

• 29:51Garrett Moreland?

  Bugs me. It really irks me.

• 29:53Payton Moreland?

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• 30:32Payton Moreland?

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• 31:28Garrett Moreland?

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• 31:47Payton Moreland?

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• 32:13Garrett Moreland?

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• 32:33Payton Moreland?

  So police get family and protective services involved. They say they're going to pull the kids out of the home and move them in with one of Crystal's aunts. And for some reason, when Steve hears the kids are being taken away from him, it's kind of the final straw. Okay, he's in the interrogation room and he cracks. Says he'll come back first thing tomorrow and tell them everything if he can have one final night with the kids. Obviously, this is a risk. Frankly, this is not a smart move, but police don't have enough to arrest him.

• 33:01Garrett Moreland?

  No, dude, no, we've got it. I'm going to be so mad. I'm going to be so mad.

• 33:07Payton Moreland?

  They say, fine, you go home, spend one more night with your family tomorrow. Give us your confession and they let him leave. Now, from what I gathered, the visit was supervised when they saw their father that night, but Steve makes another call later to his daughter from his first marriage and he tells her, can you come home for the night from college? It's probably the last time I'm going to see you. She makes the drive down to Baytown at 3:30 in the morning. And when she gets there, he tells her that at 10:00 AM, the local police are going to come get him. He starts giving her photo albums, financial statements, pretty much trying to get all of his affairs in order. And that's when she realizes my father did something to Crystal.

• 33:44Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 33:46Payton Moreland?

  And shockingly, he doesn't hurt the kids.

• 33:48Garrett Moreland?

  Oh, thank goodness.

• 33:49Payton Moreland?

  He doesn't run. He doesn't try to hop a plane. The next morning, he goes down to the station as promised and offers his statement about what happened. The final morning Crystal McDowell was alive, and here's what he says. Crystal did make it back to his house that morning. And apparently, Steve picked a fight with Crystal for having spent the night at Paul's home. Crystal told Steve, listen, you need to move on. I'm not in love with you. We are divorced. And that's when Steve snapped. Steve approached her from behind, put her in a chokehold. Crystal apparently yelled out that Steve was scaring her. He squeezed harder. Crystal stopped moving. Then he says he covered her face with a bag, tied her up, and put her and her stuff in the car.

• 34:29Garrett Moreland?

  Gosh, man.

• 34:30Payton Moreland?

  He waits the whole day. And then the following morning, while his kids were still asleep, he drove out to a wooded area near his home to get rid of the body. And then he left her car in the motel parking lot. But now, the next part of their agreement, obviously, is that Steve has to lead detectives to the body. And that's going to be a little hard because 15 days after killing Crystal on September 9th, 2017, he drives them out to the wooded area, which has now been covered with trees and debris from the storm. So it takes a lot of searching, but they do eventually find Crystal's body. That day, 42-year-old Steve McDowell is finally charged with her murder. If you think about it, Steve might have gotten away with this had his conscience not got the best of him.

• 35:14Payton Moreland?

  Because again, all they had was security camera footage. They didn't have a body. They didn't even have evidence of a murder. Honestly, the storm was so bad, Crystal's body might not have ever been found because she'd kind of been buried.

• 35:27Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, I was gonna say that, not that I wanted to go this way, but if he didn't confess and just got an attorney and played hardball, he honestly might have gotten away with this.

• 35:38Payton Moreland?

  Yeah. Cause all they had was security footage.

• 35:41Garrett Moreland?

  There's not enough evidence to put someone away for murder.

• 35:44Payton Moreland?

  And on that security footage, it's not like you can look at it and concretely say, yeah, that's Steve. They're just using context clues.

• 35:52Garrett Moreland?

  It's just like, oh, he got a bike. Okay.

• 35:54Payton Moreland?

  Yeah. And?

• 35:55Garrett Moreland?

  And?

• 35:56Payton Moreland?

  Who says he even actually saw the car?

• 35:59Garrett Moreland?

  Good thing, good thing it scared him enough to confess. Otherwise he would have gone away with it.

• 36:03Payton Moreland?

  Yeah. So Steve does claim that this was a crime of passion, which apparently in the state of Texas can get someone out of jail in as little as two years. So when it came time for the trial in 2019, that was Steve's approach, but his story had changed a bit too. He said that he actually had sex with Crystal that morning when she came over and that the choking was the result of a hug that he took too far. Ooh. Quite the excuse.

• 36:29Garrett Moreland?

  He should have stuck with his other story.

• 36:30Payton Moreland?

  Maybe, cuz what?

• 36:32Garrett Moreland?

  That's the craziest thing I've ever heard.

• 36:34Payton Moreland?

  So after five days of testimony, a lot of circumstantial evidence, they found Steve guilty of first degree murder. A day later, he was sentenced to 50 years in prison for his crime.

• 36:44Garrett Moreland?

  Oh, first degree murder. Okay.

• 36:45Payton Moreland?

  Perhaps one of the most heartbreaking details, though, of this case that was revealed at trial was that the couple's now seven-year-old daughter Maui witnessed her mother's death.

• 36:55Garrett Moreland?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 36:57Payton Moreland?

  She later said she saw her father place his hands over her mother's nose and mouth. So she just was there the entire time. And after her father told her to stay in the bedroom and not tell anyone about what had happened.

• 37:08Garrett Moreland?

  Oh, the trauma makes me so sad.

• 37:11Payton Moreland?

  So after their father's imprisonment, both kids went to live with Crystal's family nearby. And in 2024, the then 12-year-old Maui said in a podcast that she and her brother were no longer speaking to their father. And that was a decision they'd made together. But Maui's brave confession goes to show that even in the perfect storm.

• 37:30Garrett Moreland?

  Poor girl.

• 37:30Payton Moreland?

  The truth will always find a way to reveal itself. Sometimes it just takes a little time. And that is the case of Crystal McDowell.

• 37:38Garrett Moreland?

  There's just so much to it. The fact that she already had such a

• 37:43Payton Moreland?

  traumatic life.

• 37:44Garrett Moreland?

  Traumatic, difficult life, growing up and going through all that.

• 37:47Payton Moreland?

  And was finally happy.

• 37:48Garrett Moreland?

  And then wanted for her ex-husband to kill her. She had kids. It's I just, I can't. It's, um, I mean, a lot of these are the same type of cases sadly where it's like, if I can't have you, nobody can.

• 38:03Payton Moreland?

  Can't handle, no.

• 38:05Garrett Moreland?

  It's like.

• 38:07Garrett Moreland?

  Especially when they have kids too. It's like you have kids, like things are bigger.

• 38:12Payton Moreland?

  I listen.

• 38:12Garrett Moreland?

  Things are bigger than this.

• 38:13Payton Moreland?

  I get it. Love is hard. Love makes people crazy.

• 38:18Garrett Moreland?

  For sure. I get that, but killing someone, yeah, there's so many routes. Killing someone is blows my mind.

• 38:27Payton Moreland?

  Go to the hospital. Like if you're having those thoughts, just get help because again, love makes people do crazy things as well as hate. But like, there are ways to make it okay in your brain.

• 38:39Garrett Moreland?

  That's wild. That's so sad.

• 38:40Payton Moreland?

  All right, you guys, that was our episode and we will see you next time with another one. I love it.

• 38:45Garrett Moreland?

  And I hate it.

• 38:45Payton Moreland?

  Goodbye.

• 38:55Speaker 01

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