00:00:04
[music playing] MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: At
14,000 feet above sea level, Steve McDowell has
arranged a special gift
00:00:15
for his wife, Crystal. ALL: (SINGING) Happy
birthday to you. Happy birthday to you.
00:00:23
Happy birthday, dear Crystal. Happy birthday to you. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
A few years later,
00:00:32
Steve's birthday girl disappears
in the middle of a hurricane. It wasn't just that
Crystal was missing.
00:00:40
People were dying everywhere. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Detectives suspect foul play.
00:00:50
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: The
one-time real estate agent is last seen leaving her
lover's house on the way to meet
00:00:54
up with her former husband. And she just did
not realize the danger she was putting herself in.
00:01:00
Is this the story of a
woman lost in a hurricane? Or is it a tale of murder? The daughter said that she
saw, you know, her father,
00:01:12
saw Steve strangling Crystal. Nearly half of women murdered
are killed by their partners.
00:01:20
But plenty of men also fall
victim to the same fate. I'm Michelle Trachtenberg, and
this is "Meet, Marry, Murder."
00:01:30
[theme music] Steve and Crystal McDowell never
had what most people would call a traditional relationship.
00:01:50
He was a little
bit of a Mr. Mom. She wore the pants in the
family pretty, pretty much.
00:01:56
Anything Crystal wanted,
he tried his best to do. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: But the
arrangement worked for them.
00:02:01
While Crystal was career driven,
Steve was more of a Mr. Mom and had a daughter from
a previous marriage.
00:02:09
His role in the
marriage was to help take care of their children,
because she had two jobs.
00:02:13
In a lot of ways, he
probably spent more time with the children
than Crystal did.
00:02:19
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
When Crystal met Steve, it seemed like she'd finally
found the stable home
00:02:23
she never had growing up. She did have a
rough childhood. Through the
investigation, we learned
00:02:27
that both of her parents
died early in life during her childhood. Both of them were
very recreational,
00:02:37
potentially addicted to drugs. She was moved around and raised
by a number of different people
00:02:44
in the family. CINDY SERATTE: My name is Cindy. And Crystal is my
niece by marriage.
00:02:52
My family was best
friends with their family on the grandparents' side. So we all just kind of grew up
knowing that the grandparents
00:03:00
were taking care of her. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Crystal's aunt, Cindy Seratte, remembers a little
girl who didn't let
00:03:05
life's adversity hold her back. She was a little
firecracker then. She was cute, and
funny, and outgoing,
00:03:13
had a big personality-- sweet, sweet, loving child. She was loved by everyone. She never let
anything get her down.
00:03:22
She was always fun
and rambunctious. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Crystal
was raised by her grandparents
00:03:26
in Baytown, Texas. BRIAN HAWTHORNE: It's about 20
miles to the east of Houston. Baytown is more of a suburban,
very middle class, lots
00:03:36
of petrochemical workers,
schoolteachers, some people that commute into Houston.
00:03:41
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
By her mid-20s, Crystal had met Steve McDowell,
a lively, good-looking guy
00:03:46
seven years her senior. She was in the salon when she
had told me she had met Steve,
00:03:52
and that he was very
sweet and caring, and that he meant a lot to her,
and things may be going forward
00:03:59
with their relationship. And I asked her
basically if she thought she was in love with him.
00:04:04
And she said, yes,
ma'am, Aunt Cindy. I think I am. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Crystal
was ambitious and outgoing.
00:04:10
Steve McDowell was less driven. When I first met Steve, I-- I liked him. I thought he was
a pretty cool guy.
00:04:17
He was nice. He was very laid back. You know, she was always the
wild, and fun, and eccentric,
00:04:24
and live life on the edge. And he always kind
of let her take the front seat of everything.
00:04:29
He was a supervisor at one of
those warehouses that services the chemical factories,
particularly dealing
00:04:37
with ethylene and plastics. And I thought that was a good
pair, because as much as she
00:04:42
traveled, as much as she had
friends and wanted to go, he just kind of went along.
00:04:46
I liked him. I just thought she had found
her soul mate for life. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Almost immediately
00:04:51
after Steve and Crystal
got married in 2007, cracks appeared in
their relationship.
00:04:57
I think she just knew that
they weren't compatible. He was very
emotional, very needy.
00:05:03
They started arguing
a lot, basically just growing pains of marriage. But he was so emotional that
he would throw out threats.
00:05:15
She basically, within
the first year, noticed there was
just a lot of signs that it just was
not going to work.
00:05:25
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Crime reporter Carolyn Canville investigated
the McDowells' marriage.
00:05:30
So she decides it's
time to file for divorce. Steve kind of
manipulates the situation
00:05:37
and gets Crystal not to
go through with a divorce. So they continue trying
to make the marriage work.
00:05:45
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Desperate to save his marriage, Steve McDowell
could be persuasive.
00:05:50
Anything he could do,
literally, to get her, he would. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
It worked.
00:05:55
They stayed together
and first had a baby boy and then a daughter. Their children had kind
of interesting names.
00:06:02
Like, one of them was
named after a video game. And another one was
named after a pretty
00:06:10
common type of marijuana. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
But that wasn't the only unconventional thing
about the McDowell family.
00:06:19
BRIAN HAWTHORNE: Crystal
and even Steve, I think, dabbled with other relationships
while they were married.
00:06:26
You know, to the
best of our knowledge and what we could
see, it was probably more behind each other's backs.
00:06:33
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: It
was clear that neither Steve nor Crystal were happy. So why stay together?
00:06:39
Crystal hadn't
really wanted to be married for a really long time. She was mainly staying
for the children.
00:06:46
She loved Steve as a person. She respected him as far
as a dad was concerned. She never spoke ill of him.
00:06:54
She just kind of fell
out of love with him. She had a hard time with
it, because she wanted
00:06:59
her family to be together. She literally had spent her
whole life without her parents.
00:07:03
And he didn't have parents
that he had any contact with for the most part. He revolved around
Crystal's family.
00:07:11
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
As for Steve, he kept doing
everything he could to keep Crystal from leaving.
00:07:17
I think he was living
in a fantasy land. And I do believe he
was being manipulative.
00:07:23
He wanted to do whatever
it took to keep her. Well, there's no doubt that
Steve is the type of person
00:07:28
that can be very manipulative. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Steve and Crystal had been married for five years
when he arranged her birthday
00:07:36
surprise to go skydiving. ALL: (SINGING) Happy
birthday to you. Happy birthday to you.
00:07:45
Happy birthday, dear Crystal. Happy birthday to you. That was so fun. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: As their
10th anniversary approached,
00:07:56
it was clear that Steve
and Crystal's marriage was on its last legs. They just kind of grew apart.
00:08:02
She went one way. He went another. Her dreams and visions were
going different places.
00:08:07
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
By early 2017, Crystal had launched
a lucrative new career
00:08:11
as a real estate agent. Oh, she was an
amazing realtor. Everyone loved her. She reached out
to so many people.
00:08:18
And her whole motto is
that she just wanted to be a blessing to someone. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Meanwhile, Steve
00:08:24
was only too happy to let
his wife pay the bills. I think there had
been times when he maybe
00:08:29
didn't have as steady of a job. She really is the
breadwinner for this family. She is really supporting
the whole family.
00:08:37
She would go, and she'd
work, and work, and work. And it was never enough. Then the more that she did, it
was like the more he expected.
00:08:46
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Eventually, Crystal got fed up that Steve
wasn't pulling his weight,
00:08:50
and she filed for divorce. I think when a divorce
is being finalized, or during the period of time
the divorce is going through,
00:08:58
is a very dangerous time,
because the desperate person that doesn't want to let
go is at a point where
00:09:06
they may try or do anything. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Despite the growing tension between them, Crystal let
Steve know she'd always put
00:09:13
their children's needs first. She made it perfectly
clear that we would still have something to do with him,
and that if she got divorced
00:09:20
from him, that we
would stay in contact and that we would
accept him, because that
00:09:24
was her children's father. So they're doing their best to
keep things civil and amicable
00:09:31
in front of the children. They don't want to upset them
any more than they need to.
00:09:35
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: After
giving it the old college try, Crystal quickly began
wondering if she'd
00:09:39
made the right decision. A few weeks after the
divorce, Crystal called 911. She said that her
husband refused
00:09:46
to give her the children,
and he was threatening her. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Steve's temper tantrum
00:09:53
was a clear
indication to Crystal their post-marriage relationship
wouldn't be as harmonious
00:09:58
as she first thought,
despite her efforts to keep things civil for the
kids, and that she'd find out
00:10:05
it was only to get
worse from there. And Steve was threatening to
harm himself and the children.
00:10:12
So it's pretty clear that while
Crystal was doing everything she could to maintain things,
keep things even and stable
00:10:18
for the children, that
Steve was exhibiting some pretty dangerous behavior. [music playing]
00:10:37
Even after a terrifying
episode in which Crystal McDowell had to dial 911
when her ex-husband, Steve,
00:10:44
refused to return
her children to her, she decided not to press charges
for the sake of the kids,
00:10:51
a mistake she
would later regret. She was renovating
her townhome. It was a townhome that
they had owned together.
00:10:59
And she got it in the divorce. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: With
Steve still not working,
00:11:04
Crystal bought him a house
nearby in Mont Belvieu so the kids would continue to
have some sense of stability.
00:11:09
The whole reason Crystal
bought a home in Mont Belvieu is because it is a very
good school district.
00:11:16
Mont Belvieu still has the warm
and cozy, kind of country feel, know your neighbor type feel.
00:11:22
The whole idea was to get
into the school district, get them set up into the home.
00:11:28
And then she was going to
live in her home in Baytown. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
The arrangement
00:11:33
also proved convenient
for a different reason. While Crystal's townhouse
was being renovated,
00:11:38
Steve invited her to live
with him and the kids. He had asked her to
just stay with him,
00:11:45
that he would move out
of the master bedroom. She could have
the master bedroom if she would just stay
at the house with him
00:11:53
and the kids, which she did. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: The setup
seemed to benefit both of them.
00:11:58
CINDY SERATTE: Crystal
thought, I'll just stay there. And that'll give me the
opportunity to spend
00:12:02
some time with the kids. And then that way,
when I am home, I can help get them to school
and get them breakfast.
00:12:07
She wanted to be a
part of their life. She was going to see
the kids more often.
00:12:11
But she also had a built-in
babysitter with Steve. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: According
to Sheriff Brian Hawthorne,
00:12:17
however, the unusual living
arrangement actually fueled Steve McDowell's delusional
belief that he and Crystal
00:12:23
would get back together. BRIAN HAWTHORNE: Crystal
moving back into the house was just a manipulative scenario
that put Steve thinking that he
00:12:32
had an opportunity to re-engage
his relationship with her when in fact she had no intentions.
00:12:39
And she just did not
realize the danger she was putting herself in. And I would tell
her, you know,
00:12:44
I don't think it's a good idea. I don't think you
need to stay there. Basically, he's
not in a position
00:12:50
where he is willing to
accept you as a friend. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Within days, Crystal realized
00:12:56
her aunt might have a point. Her ex-husband wasn't
ready to let her go. I seen a change in Crystal
when it come to her mannerisms
00:13:07
toward Steve. Like, at first,
you know, she was very compassionate and kind. And then it got to be where he
would start following her too
00:13:16
much or calling her too much. Steve would come in. And just their body
language-- you know,
00:13:21
they didn't make eye contact. They would have a lot of tense
body language, very one word.
00:13:28
It was just very uncomfortable. He was delusional. And he would cry a lot. He would get mad a lot.
00:13:35
His emotions were
all over the place. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Steve became convinced
00:13:38
that Crystal was dating again. He obsessed over her every move. Well, he started stalking her
at the real estate business.
00:13:45
Like, he had put
trackers on her car. He was accusing her
of different things that was going on at work.
00:13:52
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Nothing was going on at work. But Steve was right
about one thing.
00:13:55
His ex-wife had met someone. She has a new boyfriend. She's met Paul Hargrave. He's a local jeweler.
00:14:02
Paul was adventurous. From what she said,
he was very charming. And I think she was finally
ready to move forward,
00:14:10
like it was going
to be OK for her. She had met somebody that she
could enjoy their company.
00:14:15
I think she just felt
things falling in place. And she goes on Facebook,
and she says, I have
00:14:19
never been happier in my life. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: But
did Steve know why Crystal
00:14:24
was so happy all of a sudden? MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
But there was also another reason Crystal
wanted to keep her new man
00:14:42
a secret for the moment. The family was
going on a family cruise, kids and everybody.
00:14:48
And Steve was going
to be a part of it. I think she wanted Steve
to go so she would have
00:14:54
a built-in babysitter on the
cruise ship with the children so she could enjoy
her family and enjoy
00:15:00
other people on the cruise. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Steve had other plans. Steve intended on hoping
to get remarried to Crystal
00:15:09
on the cruise. I mean, I think he just
had thought so much stuff up in his mind about
renewing their vows
00:15:17
and just falling back in love. He was just a little
bit delusional, because she never let on that
she was going to remarry him.
00:15:25
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Crystal then made a fateful decision,
telling Steve she wouldn't
00:15:29
be taking him on the cruise. Instead, she was taking
her new boyfriend. And ultimately,
she wanted Paul
00:15:36
to go on the cruise with her. She wanted to go with her new
boyfriend, not her ex-husband.
00:15:41
So she has to break the news
to Steve that he won't be going on the cruise this time,
that she's going to be
00:15:48
taking her boyfriend, Paul. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Steve McDowell was crushed. Steve was devastated
about being uninvited.
00:15:55
She had told him
that she had met Paul and that, you know, she was-- she was divorced.
00:16:02
They were gonna stay divorced. And she was moving forward. And he didn't like that.
00:16:07
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
The day Crystal broke the news to Steve,
on August 21, 2017,
00:16:12
two storms started brewing-- a category 4 hurricane
began bearing down on the region, and
Steve McDowell's rage
00:16:20
at being rejected. He comes in the house and he
finds her dressed to the nines to go out with
her new boyfriend.
00:16:29
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Three
days later, on August 24, all of Southeast Texas began
bracing itself for Hurricane
00:16:36
Harvey to make landfall. BRIAN HAWTHORNE: Everybody was
in hurricane preparation mode.
00:16:40
A number of people had already
evacuated to Dallas or Austin, different places,
San Antonio, trying
00:16:48
to get away from the Coast. So we'd gotten a lot of rain. We have a lot of businesses that
have a tendency to close up.
00:16:53
The highways-- there's
very little traffic, because nobody gets out in it. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Back in Mont Belvieu,
00:17:00
the hurricane's effects
were still relatively mild. So Steve hoped he might be able
to convince Crystal to stay
00:17:06
over to be with the kids. But she had other ideas. I call it the straw that
broke the camel's back.
00:17:12
She had come to the house. He was out in the backyard,
playing with the kids. He thought it was gonna
be a Steve, and Crystal,
00:17:20
and the kids evening. Instead, she left, and went,
and got together with Paul. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Crystal and Paul
00:17:30
made a date to go to the
mall and then out to dinner. BRIAN HAWTHORNE: During all
of this time, it's raining.
00:17:34
It's raining pretty
heavy at times. The storm was affecting
the Texas Coast. And instead of actually
going back home,
00:17:41
she went and stayed the
night at Paul's house. And I think that also
definitely frustrated Steve.
00:17:51
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Steve McDowell was still clinging to the delusion
that he had a chance
00:17:56
of winning Crystal back. With Hurricane Harvey
about to make landfall, little did Crystal
know that her decision
00:18:03
to stay at her new
boyfriend's house instead of hunkering down
with Steve and their kids
00:18:08
would mean she'd end up
facing the fury of a storm more dangerous than
the hurricane itself.
00:18:17
[music playing] The morning of August 25, 2017,
with Hurricane Harvey bearing down on Southeast
Texas, Crystal McDowell
00:18:40
is captured on security cam
leaving her new boyfriend's home after spending the night.
00:18:45
On her way out the
door, she sends a text to her ex-husband, Steve. At one minute after 7:00,
she sends him a text message.
00:18:54
On my way. Do you have water? I may stay here with the kids. Seems like just rain.
00:19:01
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
But it isn't just rain. It's actually the start of
something much, much worse.
00:19:07
BRIAN HAWTHORNE: It
went ashore and stalled. And then it started
moving back to the east.
00:19:12
And then once it moved
back to the east, then that's when
we started having the winds and the heavy rains.
00:19:19
The hurricane was really bad. I mean, people were
flooded out of their homes. I mean, they had
lost everything.
00:19:25
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Crystal's aunt Cindy is hunkering down
in her Belvieu home
00:19:29
to wait out the
storm when she gets a troubling call from her son. We were watching TV, actually.
00:19:34
And he had-- he was
burning my phone up. And finally, I answered it. And he just told
me, he said, Mom,
00:19:39
did you know that
Crystal was missing? And I'm like-- I kind of really
chuckled at first.
00:19:44
I'm like, Crystal
is not missing, son. He said, yes, Mom,
she's missing. Like, nobody can find her.
00:19:49
I said, Clinton,
Crystal didn't run off. She's not missing. She probably flew to Belize or
somewhere to escape the storm.
00:19:57
She's not missing. And he goes, Mom,
everybody's looking for her. Her friends, her family--
00:20:03
no one has heard from her. She's not responding
to text messages. She's not responding
to phone calls.
00:20:09
People are getting
really worried. She was reported
missing by family members. I had called
her several times,
00:20:17
and texted her, and
said, hey, babe. Where you at? Everybody's looking for you. And I knew that when
she did not text
00:20:24
me back within an hour or so,
there was something wrong. And that's when I
started to get worried.
00:20:31
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Cindy immediately gets in touch with Crystal's
uncle, Jeff Walters, who
00:20:36
had not only helped
raise Crystal, but also happened to be her
boss at the real estate agency.
00:20:42
Jeff is the one who
filed the missing persons report on Crystal
with the Chambers
00:20:46
County Sheriff's Department. But with Hurricane Harvey
going on at the same time,
00:20:50
they're stretched a little thin. BRIAN HAWTHORNE: There,
where Crystal and Steve were
00:20:56
residing, that particular
area of our county got somewhere in between 55
and 60 inches of rain over,
00:21:05
you know, about a 72
to 48-hour period, just depending on
how you looked at it. So neighborhoods were
all going underwater.
00:21:15
So while all this was
taking place, dealing with a missing persons
case, at the same time,
00:21:22
we're trying to do everything
we can to help our citizens, whether it's evacuate them
from their homes using airboats
00:21:28
or our high water vehicles, also
trying to secure their homes. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
The sheriffs
00:21:35
believed Crystal probably
just got lost in the storm. She was very smart. She wouldn't have drove
her car through high water.
00:21:41
Before she left, basically,
the roads were not flooded. So she could have got out.
00:21:47
When she come over that
morning to get the kids, she could have got out safely. She would have never
jeopardized her kids.
00:21:53
She wouldn't put herself
in the middle of that. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: The
rest of Crystal's family
00:21:57
also believes her
sudden disappearance is due to something
far more sinister. They immediately
told us that we
00:22:03
needed to be looking at Steve. Basically, he was
just saying, he don't know what happened to her.
00:22:07
She just never come in. It was odd. His body language
was very different. But at the first, you
don't know if they're
00:22:17
just distraught because they
do believe she's missing or if, you know, technically,
he did something.
00:22:22
But it definitely
crosses your mind. I never really thought
that he would kill her.
00:22:25
I figured he probably
had her somewhere and was torturing her. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Homicide detective
00:22:30
Rod Demery is no stranger to
this kind of investigation. ROB DEMERY: You look
for immediate people
00:22:35
that they may be
in contact with. You look for the immediate area. You kind of expand that
as the worry and concern
00:22:41
grows to a large-scale search. That includes searching
places, looking for vehicles.
00:22:49
It's pretty involved,
leaving no stone unturned until you
can find some sign or evidence of this person.
00:22:56
When we sat down
as a team and started looking at who we felt were
our persons of interest,
00:23:04
Steve was no doubt one of them. But we also had other
people of interest too. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Within 48 hours
00:23:11
of Crystal's
disappearance, storm waters flood most of the County. Normally, the search
would be on in full force.
00:23:18
So the waters are rising. And homes are underwater. And entire neighborhoods
are flooded.
00:23:25
And the police are doing
everything they can. But a lot of these deputies
and these police officers,
00:23:32
their homes are underwater. They can't get to
scenes, because there's no way to get there.
00:23:36
Their cars are underwater. The streets are impassable. So a normal investigation
can't happen.
00:23:43
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Instead,
Sheriff Hawthorne's team only questions three
people in connection
00:23:47
with Crystal's disappearance-- her former husband,
Steve, her uncle Jeff, and her new boyfriend, Paul.
00:24:05
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Paul immediately points to Steve as the one who
cops should be focusing on.
00:24:16
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Uncle Jeff is similarly concerned about
Steve's unhealthy obsession
00:24:19
with Crystal. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: But
when detectives finally interview Steve, they find him
more than willing to cooperate.
00:24:36
Steve was very
willing to talk to us. The individual that
immediately uses their right to not
answer questions or not
00:24:45
give any kind of information-- sometimes that has
a tendency to make you even more of a suspect.
00:24:52
Well, Steve, day after day
after day, all we'd have to do is ask him if he'd
come to the sheriff's
00:24:59
office and answer questions. Steve will tell
police initially that Crystal never showed up.
00:25:04
He doesn't know where she is. She had sent
some texts and said she was gonna come get the kids
and that she never showed up.
00:25:10
And he was sticking to it. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
After coming up empty handed with
Steve, detectives
00:25:15
ask Cindy to do them a favor. As far as I was told, just to
hang out with him, talk to him,
00:25:22
and just to listen, to be an
ear for, you know, the police. Steve was kind of sweaty.
00:25:29
He was kind of shaky. He was all over the
place, very agitated, very emotional, which
could be expected,
00:25:38
because his wife was missing. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Over
the course of several days,
00:25:42
Cindy works to build
up Steve's trust. CINDY SERATTE: His
emotions were everywhere.
00:25:46
He had cried. He would talk about
how much he loved her and how much he missed her.
00:25:50
I would try to get
into his psyche. And it-- you know,
at one point, he screamed, and raised
his fist, and accused
00:25:56
me of being just like Crystal. I mean, he started shaking
and got in my face. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Is Steve worried
00:26:01
sick about his
missing ex, or does he just have something to hide? As Hurricane Harvey
starts to wind down,
00:26:08
detectives get a little bit
closer to finding an answer. August 29, three days after
she's been reported missing,
00:26:16
Crystal's car is found. A friend sees her
Mercedes parked outside of a Motel 6 in Baytown.
00:26:23
The keys were still
inside the vehicle. This is really strange. They can't even get the car out,
because the waters are still
00:26:31
rising, and the
car is submerged. So they have to
have it towed out. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: The
discovery of Crystal's car
00:26:36
raises a number of questions. Primarily, why hadn't she
taken her car keys with her
00:26:41
when she left it there? And where did she go after? As they continue their
search for answers,
00:26:47
an interesting piece of
surveillance footage emerges. Steve is seen
dumping something
00:26:54
into a trash can at this
local gas station and leaving. But they were not able to
find out what those contents
00:27:02
were, because that
garbage can had been swept away by floodwaters. Everything is washing away.
00:27:08
So everything that
police are trying to do, they're being hampered
by this crazy hurricane.
00:27:13
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: But
with the hurricane finally dying down, they're
able to start
00:27:17
piecing together some answers. The evidence just
continued to keep mounting. And most of it was video
surveillance from business
00:27:26
security cameras, whether it
was the service station where we later found her car at
a Motel 6 parking lot,
00:27:38
and the gas station caught
somebody's parking the car. And that person that got out
of the car resembled Steve.
00:27:45
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Now that they were able to confirm that
Steve was the one who dumped
00:27:49
Crystal's car,
detectives finally realized her sudden
disappearance meant this was more than just
a regular missing persons case.
00:28:05
[music playing] MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
By September 8, 2017, Crystal McDowell had
been missing for 14 days.
00:28:25
Detectives strongly suspected
her ex-husband, Steve, had killed her. But they didn't have the
evidence to prove it yet.
00:28:31
But one of the things that
you learn from a detective's perspective in law enforcement
is you never rule out anybody
00:28:38
or anyone until you truly
have that physical evidence or a confession. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Steve McDowell currently had
00:28:48
custody of his two children. As he became more and more
of a person of interest,
00:28:56
myself and the district
attorney were concerned that he had already
made a threat
00:29:03
in a previous year of
taking his own life and taking the kids' life. So we know that
somehow, some way,
00:29:12
that was already in his mind. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Cindy began to fear for the children's safety.
00:29:17
I would go over there. I would try to get
the kids to school, help Steve with the
kids a little bit.
00:29:23
If I could keep him close to
me and keep the kids close, I could keep an eye
on him and maybe
00:29:29
somewhat protect the kids. So we took the
legal avenues, got the Child Protective
Services involved in it.
00:29:40
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: As
police wait for authorization to take custody of
the children, they
00:29:44
uncover another piece of
evidence that gets them one step closer to arresting Steve.
00:29:49
There was an interstate
highway and a state highway where this Motel 6 was. And directly catty-corner
of that was a Walmart.
00:29:58
And we were able to get
video surveillance of Steve buying a bicycle, and an
energy drink, and a pack
00:30:06
of cigarettes very early in the
morning, like 5:45, 6:00 AM, very early. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Curiously,
00:30:14
Steve's early morning
shopping spree is on the very same day
surveillance cameras also
00:30:20
caught him dumping
Crystal's car. And then we got additional
security video surveillance
00:30:26
of him riding that bicycle
down the Interstate 10 service road towards his house.
00:30:32
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Steve's
actions are highly suspicious. I would say it was
very unusual to be riding
00:30:38
your bike home in the rain. And it really wasn't on
an adult bicycle, either. It was a kid's bicycle.
00:30:45
And the detectives had seen
the bicycle in the garage on earlier searches. But obviously, they just
assumed that that bicycle was
00:30:58
one of the children's bikes. And it wasn't until we started
putting all the video when we
00:31:06
discovered the car, then the
video of the car being parked, and then the video of
him buying the bicycle,
00:31:14
and then the video of him
riding the bicycle home. Obviously, we went back and
did another search of the house
00:31:22
and then the garage. And there was the bicycle. And we were able to identify,
that was the bicycle that he
00:31:26
had purchased from the Walmart
shortly after parking the car in the Motel 6 parking lot.
00:31:34
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
After confirming the bike to be the same one
Steve bought at Walmart,
00:31:38
investigators are
finally able to start piecing the puzzle together. When I got to see it
the very first time,
00:31:45
I was personally
giddy, because he was one of our persons of interest. And he was becoming a
stronger and stronger
00:31:53
person of interest. And those were the pieces of
the puzzle that we needed. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: It still
isn't quite enough to charge
00:32:02
Steve with murder. But then something
happened to make him crack. Everything's pointing to him.
00:32:08
He's not being very cooperative. Police are zeroing in
on Steve at this point. Steve's getting nervous.
00:32:17
The police are nervous enough
that they have had the children taken away from him.
00:32:22
Steve then confides in his
older daughter, the one from his previous marriage. He admits to her that
he killed Crystal.
00:32:30
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: After
Crystal had been missing for 15 days, on
September 9, 2017,
00:32:36
Steve McDowell
turned himself in. At this point, Steve must
realize that it's over.
00:32:43
He finally confesses to police. He ultimately broke
down and told us that he would take us to the body.
00:32:52
It's a heavily wooded
area near Needlepoint Road. BRIAN HAWTHORNE: We
would not have located it
00:33:03
if Steve hadn't taken us to it. It was very important
for us and very important to the prosecution
that we did locate
00:33:10
the body for two reasons--
one, for prosecutorial reasons, and also for the
ability for the family
00:33:20
to have some closure based upon
what had happened to Crystal. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Finding
Crystal's body not only
00:33:27
brought closure, but also
realization of the horror she experienced before she died.
00:33:34
The details of what
he did were disturbing. When we finally were
able to recover the body,
00:33:42
the body had a lot
of decomposition. And there had also been
some wild animal activity.
00:33:53
Very difficult to identify
exactly how she died. He tells police
that they argued.
00:34:01
He strangled her
with his bare hands. Once she was dead, he covered
her face with plastic.
00:34:08
He tied her up. He stuffed her body
into a garbage bag. You know, it makes you wonder
how a person can do something
00:34:16
like that and not have
remorse, or how a person can do something like
that and not snap
00:34:24
and go, oh my god,
what am I doing? The next morning,
he loaded that garbage bag with his ex-wife's
body in it into his vehicle.
00:34:32
And he drove it until he
got to this heavily wooded area near Needlepoint Road. And he dumped her body there.
00:34:39
And for 15 days,
it's been there. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Aunt Cindy had the difficult
task of delivering
00:34:45
the news to Crystal's children. He destroyed so many lives. He destroyed his
children's life.
00:34:50
I mean, he destroyed Crystal,
and her dreams, and her goals, and her visions of her family.
00:34:58
And the kids will
grow up without a mom. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
But would the kids grow up
00:35:03
without their father as well? Steve refused to admit
to Crystal's murder. Instead, he claimed in
court that Crystal's death
00:35:11
had been a tragic accident. In the trial, he tried
to say he squeezed her to death, as in hugging her.
00:35:18
He testified that this
was a sudden passion crime and that he never
intended on killing her.
00:35:25
And in Texas, under the law,
a heat-of-the-moment killing could actually get a
defendant as little
00:35:30
as two years in prison. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Steve's denials further disgusted Crystal's family.
00:35:36
He was a coward to do it. So man up and at
least say you did it. If you snapped, or
you premeditated it,
00:35:43
or you went nuts, whatever
happened, at that point, you own it. You know you did it.
00:35:52
You own it. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Despite
Steve's claims of innocence, the prosecution knew they had a
star witness on their side, one
00:35:59
who was only seven years old. The daughter said
that she saw her father, saw Steve strangling Crystal.
00:36:14
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
After leaving her boyfriend Paul's house on the
morning of her murder,
00:36:18
Crystal arrived at
Steve's house to pick up their children as planned. Once she got there,
the two began to argue.
00:36:26
This little girl
testifies that she actually woke up while her
mommy and daddy were arguing.
00:36:35
She'd gotten up to
go to the bathroom. The argument was about
Crystal having another man.
00:36:40
And she said
that Mommy got mad. And Mommy said, I'm just going
to take my children and leave,
00:36:46
and that Daddy said,
no, you're not. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: Exactly
what happened next isn't clear.
00:36:51
Crystal's daughter testified
that when Steve saw her, he sent her back to her room,
but that before she went back
00:36:58
upstairs, she saw Steve grab
Crystal in a kind of chokehold from behind. And that's what it
appears that he did to her,
00:37:06
was strangled her till
she ultimately passed out. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Was Crystal's death really
00:37:14
a spontaneous crime
of passion, or was it a premeditated murder? That it takes four
minutes to smother someone--
00:37:22
I mean, at some point, you would
think he would have snapped and realized, what am I doing?
00:37:28
My child is watching,
and my wife's dying. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: If
this was a tragic accident,
00:37:32
then why hadn't
Steve called 911? Why had he gone to
such extreme lengths to cover up Crystal's death?
00:37:39
The manufactured text
messages, the consciousness of his guilt when he
tries to hide the body,
00:37:45
throw the body away, or
whatever the case may be, it just doesn't seem
like sudden passion.
00:37:51
MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
By June 12, 2019, the jury had heard enough. After only three
hours of deliberation,
00:37:58
they returned their verdict-- guilty. Steven McDowell is convicted
of murder in the death
00:38:06
of his ex-wife, Crystal. He's sentenced to
50 years in prison. The earliest he could be
paroled is the year 2042.
00:38:16
He will be 70 years
old at the time. He's currently serving
his time in the Texas
00:38:20
prison systems, Coffield
Unit, in Tennessee Colony. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG:
Crystal's aunt
00:38:24
Cindy is still trying
to come to terms with the loss of her niece. I have pity for him.
00:38:30
You know, he'll live the rest
of his life, or the majority of it, in prison. And he'll get what he deserves.
00:38:35
I feel bad for him that
he made that choice. MICHELLE TRACHTENBERG: For
Sheriff Brian Hawthorne,
00:38:39
the tragedy was avoidable. All Crystal had to do
was put some distance between herself and Steve.
00:38:46
If you're leaving a
hostile relationship, you need to figure out how to
separate yourself, and continue
00:38:52
to grow as two separate
people, and raise your family in a healthy way. And moving back in
with your ex-husband
00:39:03
is not a healthy way to do it. Could the sad tale of
Crystal McDowell's murder have had a different ending
if she'd made a clean break
00:39:14
from her husband, Steve? Obviously, we'll
never know for sure. But what we do know is that
her story is a tragic reminder
00:39:22
that the person most
likely to kill you may be the person you married. I'm Michelle Trachtenberg,
and I'll see you next time
00:39:32
on "Meet, Marry, Murder." [theme music]