A Texas man who killed his 2-year-old daughter while FaceTiming her mother and grandfather during a car chase and SWAT standoff has been convicted of capital murder.
But mother Kairsten Watson says the police failed her. Days before Deontray Flanagan stabbed and strangled their daughter during the horrific video call, Watson called authorities several times with concerns that he was dangerous. The two had recently broken up, and she feared something horrible might happen.
The Harris County Sherriff’s Office confirmed to ABC 13 that they responded to at least two calls at her home in the days before the murder, one for a terroristic threat and the second for phone harassment. Police determined they had insufficient evidence to support a criminal charge at the time.
“I told them over and over and over that something was going to be wrong,” the grieving mother told the outlet. “They could have at least tried to find him, but even with his past, no. I said, ‘Are y’all going to wait until something happens to her?'”
Kairsten said she showed authorities several messages where Flanagan threatened to hurt their daughter. “They didn’t believe me. They thought I was just making this up, and he was the father.”
On March 20, 2023, the toddler’s life came to a tragic end during a 45-minute police chase after Flanagan picked her up from day care. He stopped at a nearby Walmart to confront Kairsten while she was at work about talking to another man and hit her several times in the face, according to court records. He then took off with their daughter still in the car, sparking the police chase.
Prosecutors say Flanagan strangled and beat the girl, who then tossed around in the car as he drove recklessly through the city of Houston to evade police, according to KHOU 11. The jury saw a video of her mother and grandfather pleading with Flanagan on FaceTime to stop hurting the child, with Kairsten at one point saying, “He’s killed her, he’s killing her.”
After a standoff with a SWAT team, the child was airlifted to a local hospital, where she succumbed to her injuries.
“I know in her mind she probably was just like, ‘What did I do?’ Watson told KHOU 11 in 2023. “‘Why are you doing this to me? Like, I love you, why are you hurting me?’”
On Jan. 10, after a few hours of deliberation, a jury returned a guilty verdict.
The girl’s maternal grandfather, Curtis Watson, spoke to the court that day, describing how he tried to talk Flanagan down during the chase. “But then he showed me the lifeless corpse of my granddaughter,” he said, according to KHOU. “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. To have to go through that type of anguish and pain.”
In a powerful moment, he then addressed his granddaughter’s killer directly. “You may have taken her last breath,” he said. “But you cannot kill her spirit, her memory, or her name.”
“Her smile could light up anyone’s darkest days,” Kairsten said in court. Jurors began deliberating on his sentence on Jan. 13.
