Edric Wilson was suspected of killing Johnnie Daniel, the 84-year-old great-aunt of Lakewood Church pastor Joel Osteen, in 2006.
She was discovered in her eastern Harris County residence in August 2006. Her face was broken, a pencil and a copy of the New Testament were placed on her chest, and a claw hammer was left in a bloody towel beside her.
Wilson, who was 29 at the time, was accused of capital murder three months later.
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According to former Harris County Sheriff Tommy Thomas, Wilson was already being held on a different aggravated assault case when DNA evidence purportedly connected him to Daniel’s murder.
In August 2024, Harris County prosecutors dropped the murder charge against Wilson after finding the DNA evidence to be “far weaker than they’d originally believed,” a recent story by the Houston Chronicle said.
Wilson, who spent 18 years in the Harris County Jail and state mental hospitals without a trial, entered a guilty plea to the aforementioned aggravated assault charge and was released on parole last month.
According to the Chronicle, forensic analysts initially examined DNA found under Daniel’s fingernails and estimated that the chances of it being from someone other than Wilson were 1 in 73.1 million.
However, after significant advances in lab tech equipment and methods, analysts who re-tested the original DNA in 2023 discovered that the possibility of it belonging to someone other than Wilson was 1 in 15,830—which experts feel could imply an “accidental match.”
The DNA was not re-examined earlier because Wilson’s case was constantly placed on hold after he was judged “incompetent to stand trial” in 2009.
The Chronicle wrote, “Wilson was caught in an endless loop of psychological assessments and waitlists for treatment beds while attorneys argued over his competency to stand trial.”
“As that process played out, there was little incentive to investigate his claims of innocence or to re-examine the DNA test result that led to his murder charge.”
It is uncertain if Daniel’s case will be reopened by authorities.
As the newly appointed Harris County District Attorney, Sean Teare, told the Chronicle, “There were failures at every level of Wilson’s case.”
Teare, who took office in January, said, “It’s a tragic case, and the thing that it spells out is, people can fall through the cracks.”
County officials identified 230 inmates who had spent more than 1,000 days in the Harris County Jail last year, according to the Chronicle. According to county data, this number has risen in recent months.
