Relatives described years of loss after Alexus Williams admitted murder charges connected with the deaths of a couple and their young daughter.
HOUSTON, Texas — More than five years after three members of a Houston family were killed inside their apartment, their relatives faced Alexus Williams in court and described what the attack had taken from the children who survived it.
The Oct. 2 victim-impact hearing followed Williams’ guilty pleas to three counts of murder in the deaths of Donyavia Lagway, 29, Gregory Carhee, 35, and their 6-year-old daughter, Harmony Carhee. Williams, 33, received a 40-year prison sentence under a plea agreement reached as she was preparing for a capital murder trial. The hearing gave relatives an opportunity to speak directly about the consequences of the June 30, 2021 killings and brought Williams’ prosecution to an end more than a year after gunman Xavier Davis was sentenced to death for carrying out the attack.
The family’s comments centered in part on the children who remained after the shooting. One daughter, 10 years old in 2021, was wounded in the arm during the attack but survived after remaining still until Davis left the apartment. She then contacted her grandmother and other relatives to summon help. She later became a central witness in Davis’ capital murder case, testifying as a teenager about what she had seen. Another child was only 1 year old and was inside the apartment but was not shot. A third surviving child had been away from home when the killings occurred. Relatives told the court that those children have had to grow up without Lagway and Carhee.
The violence that produced those losses unfolded shortly before 10:35 p.m. at an apartment in the 12100 block of Fondren Road. Houston police said officers responding to the shooting found Lagway, Carhee and Harmony dead and the 10-year-old seriously wounded. Investigators said Davis entered the home after Carhee answered the door. Trial testimony later established that Davis, wearing a face covering, demanded money before shooting members of the family. The surviving girl’s account became especially important because she was the only person in the apartment who could later describe the attack in court. Authorities said the 1-year-old was left unharmed.
The case moved quickly against Davis but much more slowly against Williams. Police identified Davis as a suspect after receiving information during the initial investigation. Officers arrested him the following day while he was being held in an unrelated family violence case, then charged him with three counts of capital murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Evidence presented later included money found with him and testimony about a vehicle prosecutors said had been stolen before the shooting, used to travel to the apartment and burned afterward. Davis ultimately admitted the killings, eliminating the need for a jury to decide whether he was the shooter.
Williams’ connection to the family made her role more complicated. She had previously dated Lagway, prosecutors said, and investigators believed she had spent time living with the family before that relationship ended. Reporting on the case said Lagway had returned to Carhee and had recently learned she was pregnant. Authorities alleged that Williams then turned to Davis, a childhood friend who did not otherwise know the family. Prosecutors said she directed him to the apartment and told him about money inside. Relatives later described jealousy and greed as forces behind the crime, while prosecutors had earlier characterized the broken relationship as part of Williams’ motive.
Her defense rejected the prosecution’s broadest characterization. Williams’ attorneys maintained that she was not the mastermind of a planned triple killing and argued that the arrangement concerned a robbery. That position was important because Williams never fired a shot. Prosecutors, however, said she chose the target and set Davis on the path that brought him to the apartment. One prosecutor later framed their roles as separate but connected: Davis determined how the family members would die, while Williams determined which family he would encounter. The competing views of her intent were never resolved by a trial because Williams accepted a plea bargain before jurors could hear the case.
The state’s investigation nevertheless accumulated evidence tying Williams and Davis together. Authorities said the two communicated before and around the time of the attack, and text messages later became part of the case against Williams. Reports based on court records also described a FaceTime connection between the two around the time the shootings occurred. Some accounts said Williams watched the killings unfold on the call; later court reporting more cautiously said investigators believed she may have watched the attack or may have been shown its immediate aftermath. Williams was not charged until March 2022, about eight months after the killings, as detectives continued building the case against her.
While Williams remained jailed awaiting trial, Davis’ prosecution advanced to a capital sentencing proceeding. He pleaded guilty to capital murder in March 2025. Because prosecutors were seeking death, jurors still heard weeks of testimony to decide whether the punishment would be death or life in prison without parole. The surviving daughter testified during that proceeding. Davis’ defense presented evidence about his upbringing and urged jurors to spare his life. Prosecutors argued that the nature of the killings and other evidence supported a death sentence. On April 17, 2025, the jury sentenced Davis to death, leaving Williams as the remaining defendant whose case had not yet reached a final judgment.
Her case came close to trial in September 2026. Williams had initially been charged with three counts of capital murder and aggravated assault in connection with the wounded child. Houston Chronicle reporting said she at first rejected an offer to plead to murder and accept 40 years in prison. The state withdrew the offer, and preparations for trial continued. But negotiations resumed, and on Sept. 29, with trial approaching, Williams accepted substantially the same resolution. The capital murder charges were reduced to three murder counts, and the aggravated assault case was dropped. Had she gone to trial on the capital allegations and been convicted, she could have received life without parole.
The legal compromise did not end the family’s objections. At the victim-impact hearing, relatives told Williams they believed the punishment was less severe than her role deserved, particularly when compared with Davis’ death sentence. Lagway’s cousin Dominique Robins said it did not sit well with her that Williams had avoided the punishment imposed on Davis. Angela Ervin, Lagway’s aunt, spoke about the surviving children and the difficulty of rebuilding their lives after losing their parents and sister. Williams listened to the statements but declined to address the court before Judge Brian Warren imposed the agreed 40-year sentence.
The family’s experience also gave the case a dimension that went beyond the two defendants. Lagway’s 10-year-old daughter survived the shooting, called for help and years later had to recount the attack before a jury determining Davis’ fate. The youngest surviving child was too young to remember much about the parents who died. Another child was spared the attack only because he was elsewhere that night. Reports documenting Lagway’s death have said she had recently learned she was pregnant with a fifth child. Those facts meant that a single attack removed several members of one household while leaving other children to live with its aftermath.
Williams will be eligible for parole after serving 30 years under the sentence reported in the case, though eligibility does not mean parole will be granted. Davis remains under a death sentence stemming from the same killings. With Williams’ guilty pleas and sentencing, no second capital murder trial will be held to litigate the state’s original claim that she deliberately arranged the family’s deaths. The plea resolved her criminal liability through three murder convictions, while the surviving relatives left court with the legal case largely finished and the personal consequences still continuing.
Author note: Last updated November 10, 2026.