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Saturday, December 2, 2023

The Ryan Walton Double Murder Case

     Real estate developer Michael Walton and his wife Lynda resided with their 18-year-old daughter Shelby in a $1.4 million mansion a few miles from downtown Katy, Texas, a suburban community of 14,000 outside of Houston. Residents of the Lake Pointe Estates gated community referred to the two-story Walton house as "the governor's mansion" because the 54-year-old entrepreneur had developed the subdivision.

     Mr. Walton and his 52-year-old wife had three other children who didn't live with them. Their daughter Shelby, who had just finished her senior year at Katy High School, was planning to attend college in the fall.  Donald Walton, the oldest, was 28. His brother Derrick Walton was 24, and the youngest son, Ryan, had just turned twenty.

     At five o'clock in the afternoon of Thursday, May 29, 2014, 24-year-old Derrick Walton entered the mansion to find his parents dead on the first floor of the dwelling. He called 911.

     When deputies with the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office responded to the 911 call they discovered that Michael and Lynda Walton had been shot to death. Near their bodies deputies found spent shell casings from a small caliber pistol. Because the gun was not in the house the officers ruled out murder-suicide.

     While deputies found evidence of a forced entry, the interior of the dwelling had not been ransacked and nothing appeared to have been stolen. From neighbors, investigators learned that the couple had been last seen alive at seven that morning.

     A surveillance camera at one of the subdivision's exits showed 20-year-old Ryan Walton driving out of the community in his mother's blue BMW. He was seen leaving the enclave at nine o'clock Thursday morning, two hours after his parents were seen alive.

     Shortly after the 911 call homicide investigators questioned Ryan Walton's three siblings. Ryan's whereabouts, however, were unknown. Estranged from his parents over some unidentified conflict, Ryan had moved out of the house three weeks earlier. He had also dropped out of Texas A & M University at Corpus Christi. (In 2011 the Walton's youngest son had been arrested for possession of marijuana.)

      On Friday, May 30, 2014 the sheriff of Fort Bend County declared Ryan Robert Walton a person of interest in the Walton double murder case.

     An off-duty Fort Bend sheriff's deputy, at thirty minutes past noon on Saturday, May 31, 2014, spotted Ryan Walton behind the wheel of his mother's stolen BMW. The officer pulled the car over in the town of Rosenberg, a community twenty miles from the murder scene.

     That Saturday afternoon officers booked Ryan Walton into the Fort Bend County Jail on two counts of murder. The judge denied him bond.

     On July 3, 2014 a Fort Bend grand jury indicted Ryan Walton on two counts of capital murder. In Texas that meant he was eligible for the death penalty. Six weeks later, at an arraignment hearing, the defendant's court-appointed lawyer pleaded his client not guilty to the murder charges. More than a dozen of the suspect's family and some of his friends attended the hearing. None of them agreed to talk to reporters.

      On September 21, 2016 Judge James Shoemake, pursuant to a plea bargain deal, sentenced 22-year-old Ryan Walton to life with the possibility of parole after 30 years in prison. Because there was no trial and very little news coverage of this case, the motive behind the murders remained a mystery. 

18 comments:

  1. Just curious if anything has transpired on this case. Lynda was an older classmate of mine in the small town of Ackley Iowa. Beautiful gal... I was a Freshman when she was a Senior.

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  2. According to county court docs, Jury Trial is set to begin 4/19/16.

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    1. Hi ! Do you know something this days about the trail jury ?

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  3. Why is this case no where in the news ?????

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  4. Still nothing in the news or anywhere
    about the trail why ????

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  5. Looks like there is a Competency Hearing set for June 10, 2016.

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  6. Replies
    1. Because we're interested in justice. You're on here, so you're nosey yourself!

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    2. they just sentenced him to life

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  7. What has happened in this case. It's been 2 years since the lives of this couple was cut short. Why has there not been any coverage on this case ? It is terrible and we all need to know is that the couple will receive justice.

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  8. What has happened in this case. It's been 2 years since the lives of this couple was cut short. Why has there not been any coverage on this case ? It is terrible and we all need to know is that the couple will receive justice.

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  9. What has happened in this case. It's been 2 years since the lives of this couple was cut short. Why has there not been any coverage on this case ? It is terrible and we all need to know is that the couple will receive justice.

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  10. Any way to contact a major news station to see if anyone is interested in finding a current status of this case? Sad how our justice system is so very slow in prosecuting cases.

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    1. http://abc13.com/news/son-takes-plea-bargain-in-parents-double-murder/1520908/

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  11. http://www.click2houston.com/news/son-charged-in-2014-deaths-of-parents-gets-life-in-prison

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  12. I bought a home from this couple in 1990. Their murderer hadn't even been born yet. Mike had built the house in Cypress, Texas as his own general contractor. He and wife Lynda leased my old home for about a year. She cried on moving day because she loved the home they built and did not want to leave. What a shock to see their names in the news for being murdered by their own son. To live is to be uncertain. Certainty comes at the end.

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