By Kim Hilsenbeck
While no one has been charged with Feb. 3 murder in the Samantha Dean case, recent arrests and evidence seem to connect three individuals to her death. One is listed in court documents as a suspect in the murder.
Police arrested Kyla Fisk, 50, for tampering/fabricating physical evidence. Fisk is the girlfriend of Kevin Watson, 31, who authorities say is a suspect in Dean’s capital murder case.
Dean, a Kyle Police Department Crisis Counselor, was seven months pregnant at the time of her death. Her body was found in Bastrop on Feb. 3. She was shot three times in the head.
According to court documents, in a jailhouse phone call recorded on May 2 between Watson and Fisk, Watson, who was in the Harris County Jail at the time on a drug charge, asked her to get rid of a hoodie (sweatshirt) he said was stained at work.
The document says Fisk told Watson she had already “taken care of it.”
On May 4, investigators claim Fisk admitted she took a red University of Houston hoodie to a friend’s apartment in Houston. Court documents reveal the clothing was later recovered. Kyla Fisk was then arrested and charged with tampering / fabricating physical evidence.
The hoodie plays a crucial role as a Walmart security camera in Stafford, near Houston, captured video of an individual in a red hoodie buying a pre-paid cell phone. Authorities claim that individual appears to be Watson.
Police say that phone was used to contact Dean several times prior to her murder. In the phone is a text message sent to Dean asking her to meet at the location where an off-duty officer later found her body. Investigators say the Walmart cell phone was geo-located to the crime scene.
But the plot thickens as authorities say a third suspect, Aaron Lamont Williams, is in the Bastrop County Jail on a retaliation charge. He allegedly sent a death threat text to an Austin police victims’ crisis counselor. Dean was a volunteer victim crisis counselor in Austin.
Police say the text message they recovered reads in part, “I (expletive) got her, I am going to get him, and then I am coming for you. I will show you what a crisis is.”
It is unclear who the “him” is that the text was referring to.
According to court documents from Bastrop County, Williams is accused of sending a text message to the counselor on Feb. 8, four days after Dean’s body was found.
But the court papers provide no direct link to the Dean murder. That could explain why police have not yet filed any other charges against Williams.
In May, authorities obtained an arrest warrant to search the home of VonTrey Clark, widely believed to be the father of Dean’s unborn child. Police took shoes, electronic devices and a DNA sample of Clark.
No link has been reported between Clark and Watson, Fisk or Williams.
Kyle Police Chief Jeff Barnett said in a written response, “We have always believed that the law enforcement agencies collaborating in the investigation into the death of Samantha were making progress in the case, and we understand that investigations can often times take weeks or often months.”
He continued, “Hearing the recent news has reassured everyone that Samantha has not been forgotten, and that the truth about her tragic death will become known. We continue to remember Samantha’s contribution to the Kyle community every day. Although she will never be replaced, we have strived to continue her legacy of serving the victims of crime and those families who have lost loved ones.”
