HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Police believe a woman was gunned down at a northeast Houston storage unit in November because her common-law husband had ripped off a drug buyer, according to court documents.
Kip Stitts, of Detroit, was charged with murder Friday in connection with 33-year-old Sherry Dawson’s death, but hasn’t been apprehended yet.
Police say he’s a former friend and business associate of Dawson’s common-law husband, who reportedly admitted to being involved in drug trafficking.
Investigators say surveillance video shows a pickup truck following Dawson into a storage unit along the Eastex Freeway the morning of Nov. 5.
Detectives say she’s seen falling down, fighting with the suspect, then standing up and falling off again as the suspect drives off.
The same day, Dawson’s husband told police about Stitts.
According to court documents, he said he had introduced Stitts to a cocaine supplier.
When Stitts told him he was planning to rob the supplier, Dawson’s husband and the supplier hatched a plan to steal from Stitts, according to court documents.
Police say Dawson’s husband told them Stitts paid him $125,000 for a shipment of cocaine about a month before the murder, but the drugs were never delivered.
Dawson’s husband told police that about two weeks before the murder, he got word that Stitts was looking for him and that he believes his wife was killed because of the money he stole from Stitts.
Hours after the murder, police pulled over another vehicle registered to Stitts in Atascocita, but Stitts wasn’t in the vehicle.
Investigators say his phone began pinging in Detroit the next day.
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