(NewsSpace.com) – When crimes are committed, law enforcement does its best to nail down the criminal and hold them accountable. However, sometimes other people—vigilantes—decide to take it into their own hands. That’s exactly what happened in Houston, Texas, when a 22-year-old man allegedly shot and killed a man previously convicted of sexual offenses.
On Wednesday, January 31, Houston Police officers arrested and charged James Lewis Spencer III, 22, with murder. He is accused of killing convicted sexual offender Sean Connery Showers, 37, last May. The victim had been walking alongside a road when a vehicle pulled up and someone inside shot him.
After Spencer’s arrest, more details came to light. The suspect had reportedly been engaging with Showers online, pretending to be a minor to lure the victim to a park. Phone records show the two conversing and also show Spencer traveling to and from the park on the day Showers died.
According to KHOU 11, court records indicate that Spencer had spoken with someone else, saying he knew how to track sexual offenders with an app on his phone, and if cops didn’t handle the situation, he would take matters into his own hands. After he was taken into custody by the Gulf Coast Violent Offenders Task Force, he admitted to the killing.
Prosecutor Rehaman Merchant spoke about the crime, noting that “we’re a nation of laws… no one gets to be judge, jury, and executioner depending on how they feel.”
In 2009, the victim pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography. Showers was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison and ordered to register as a sexual offender. In 2018, he was arrested once more, this time for entering a high school without notifying the administrative office. For that, he received two more years in prison.
Spencer is in jail on a $250,000 bond, and if he bails out, he will be subject to several conditions, including GPS monitoring, 24-hour house arrest, and being prohibited from accessing weapons, including firearms and ammunition.
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