
Deontray Flanagan was accused of taking his 2-year-old daughter out of daycare and strangling the child to death while FaceTiming her mother and grandfather ... all amid a high-speed chase with police.
Drama broke out just outside the courtroom ahead of the verdict in the trial of 26-year-old Deontray Flanagan in Houston, charged with strangling his 2-year-old daughter Zevaya to death while FaceTiming her mother and grandfather.
The shocking incident occurred during a break in testimony at the Harris County Family Law Center when Flanagan was walking by CBS affiliate KHOU's news camera. According to the news outlet, the defendant lunged at the camera, knocking both it and their photojournalist to the ground.
Flanagan was quickly tackled and handcuffed by Harris County Sheriff's Office deputies. The station reports he was not cuffed in the hallway before the attack, but his ankles were shackled.
According to the Houston Chronicle, the shocking attack was immediately preceded by the arrival in court of the victim's mother Kairsten Watson's new boyfriend. This abruptly brought the proceedings to a halt as Flanagan reportedly spoke out to address him.
Watson moving on from her relationship with Flanagan was argued as the prime motivating factor in the death of their daughter. Before the jury decided his fate, Flanagan told them that he took a punishment directed at Watson for moving on from their relationship too far.
After the three-day trial finished on Friday, jurors deliberated for a few hours, per KHOU, before returning their verdict. Flanagan was convicted of capital murder. The verdict automatically sentences Flanagan to life without the possibility of parole, per the Houston Chronicle.

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View StoryZevaya's Mother Helplessly Watches Her Death
One of the key pieces of evidence presented in the trial was video of the victim's mother in the back of a police cruiser on March 20, 2023, watching her daughter's death on a FaceTime call as police tried to convince Flanagan to stop.
"Please stop - that is our daughter!" screamed Kairsten Watson as Deontray could be seen choking and beating Zevaya in the passenger seat of his Chevrolet Camaro, according to the Houston Chronicle.
Watson testified to how helpless she felt in that moment, telling jurors, "There was nothing I could do about it."
In the video, she could be seen banging on the deputy's window and telling Flanagan she would do anything he wanted, but she said she already knew it was too late, Flanagan was killing their daughter. She she said she felt trapped and unable to protect her child.
In an interview with Fox affiliate KRIV in the days after her daughter's murder, Watson said that when the call started, her daughter's "face was just covered in blood. He hit her with something really hard, and then he called me on FaceTime and he showed me."
"He choked her on FaceTime," she continued. "I said, 'Tray stop. That is your daughter. Stop. She loves you.' His exact words were, 'You only love that man. You did this to her.”

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View StoryFlanagan Attacks Ex, Triggers Police Chase
In court, Watson testified that she never thought her ex, who was present for his daughter's birth, would take his anger that far, per the Houston Chronicle.
According to her testimony in court, Flanagan started the events that would result in tragedy when he took his 2-year-old daughter out of daycare without permission at around 10 a.m. on March 20, 2023.
He then took the child with him to Walmart, where Watson worked, and confronted his ex, making threats and demanding her phone and passcodes because he was convinced she was talking with other men.
"Basically threatening to hurt the child if she did not turn those items over," a spokesperson for the Houston Police Department said at a press conference after his initial arrest.
"She made an attempt to try and rescue her daughter from his stronghold. But she was unable to do so," the spokesperson continued. "At that point, we’re told, [Flanagan] struck her possibly a couple of times to the face and continued to flee the location."
According to Watson, he grabbed her phone, pushed her away and drove off. Her call to police triggered what quickly became a 30-mile long high-speech chase with police, after police were able to track one of their phones, and Watson in the back of one of their cruisers.
During the 45-minute chase, Flanagan reportedly drove against traffic and struck other vehicles, tossing his young daughter, who was not buckled in, about the front seat. Throughout, he repeatedly contacted Watson through FaceTime and demanded the passcode to her phone, which she refused to reveal to him.
Eventually, in desperation and fear for her child's life, she relented and told him she would tell him anything, but by that point, she told jurors, she knew it was too late and her daughter was going to be killed.
"I know in her mind she probably was just like, 'What did I do?’" Watson told KHOU after Flanagan's arrest in 2023. "‘Why are you doing this to me for? Like I love you, why are you hurting me?'"

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View StoryWatson's father, Curtis, was also on those calls, and shared with the media at the time that he'd initially hoped for a peaceful resolution. "But then he showed me the lifeless corpse of my granddaughter," he said. "I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. To have to go through that type of anguish and pain."
After Flanagan's vehicle was stopped, it was still 20 more minutes in a standoff with Flanagan before the SWAT team was able to move in and subdue him.
Zevaya required CPR at the scene and was transported to a nearby hospital via helicopter, according to authorities, but she was pronounced dead on arrival. A medical examiner testified she died of blunt force trauma to the head and neck compressions.
"You may have taken her last breath, but you cannot kill her spirit, her memory, or her name," said Curtis in court on Friday. He also revealed that Zevaya was buried with her mother's surname.
