March 5, 2025 • 28 mins
Welcome to The True Crime Tales. What happened to the gorgeous realtor in the Houston suburb of Baytown? Did someone kidnap Crystal at an open house? Was she trying to flee from a natural disaster?
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A disappearance of a wife and airline stewardess is bad enough, but to have her disappear while
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during a hurricane is worst. Was this plan to cover a murder? Was the timing of the murder planned
and in hopes of being covered up by the storm? Who could have done this? Who had the motive or
opportunity to plan and carry out this devious scheme? Join us today to find out more.
Today, we're going to be talking about Crystal McDowell, who disappeared the day before Hurricane
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Harvey hit Houston, Texas. I'm sure many of you remember that time. A lot of you probably lived
through it and experienced it firsthand. Hurricane Harvey was absolutely devastating, and it was
probably one of the worst times for someone to go missing. Let me start by telling you about Crystal.
Crystal and Sirat was born on October 26, 1979, in Harris County, Texas, to her parents, Pamela and
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Anthony. Crystal had a tough start from the beginning. She had a very strained relationship
with her parents because of their drug use, and they both ended up passing away within months of
each other when Crystal was only 11 years old. As if that weren't devastating enough, when Crystal was
13 years old, sources say she was kidnapped and held in a chicken coop until she was able to escape.
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There is minimal information out there about this incident. We don't know who was taking care of her
at the time she was abducted, what that experience was like for her, or the outcome of it all, but I
did want to mention it. Eventually, though, things started looking up for her. She ended up moving in
with her uncle Jeff and was properly taken care of by members of her family. It wasn't an easy
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childhood by any means, as you can imagine, but Crystal was determined to work as hard as she could
and create a better life for herself. In her mid-20s, she met a man named Steve McDowell.
Her aunt Cindy said that Crystal was very smitten the day she met him and really believed she had
met the man of her dreams. In 2007, they got married. Like so many relationships, from the
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outside looking in, many people believed they had it all and that it was a great relationship
and that they were both really happy. But the truth was, things were not great. Crystal was
actually working as a flight attendant at the time for ExpressJet, and on top of constantly being
away from home, she was known to be unfaithful to her husband. She had a handful of affairs,
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and that definitely impacted their relationship. She was not the only one causing issues.
Both she and Steve were said to be very toxic to each other, and that toxicity just worsened as
the years went on. In 2008, Crystal actually filed for divorce, but she ended up staying with Steve
because he threatened to kill himself if she left. Clearly, this is not a good foundation for a
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marriage, and they really struggled, but for a long time, they tried to make it work. They ended up
having two kids together, a boy and a girl, and for the next several years, things seemed to be
improving for them. Eventually, Crystal decided to leave her job as a flight attendant and became
a real estate agent in Baytown, Texas, where she had grown up her entire life. Crystal ended up
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being incredibly successful in her career and was the breadwinner for their family. Crystal did a
lot to support her husband and children. She wanted to give them the life that she never had.
She was such a passionate and loving mother. She cared about her kids more than anything in the
world. Crystal was very active on social media, and just by looking at her posts, you could tell
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that her world really did revolve around her kids. Even with her busy work life, she always
made time for her family, but she always struggled to make things work in her marriage. And in 2017,
after 10 years of marriage, she decided it was finally time to leave and filed for divorce
once again. Just like when she tried to leave the first time, Steve yet again threatened his life.
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This time, she was not going to give in to his mind games. She was determined to get out of this
relationship. When threatening his own life didn't work to make Crystal stay, he ended up threatening
his children's lives. He said he would kill them first and then himself. She confided in a few
people about what he had said, but it hasn't been reported anywhere that she told authorities what
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he said he would do if she left him. Here's the thing. It's not like Crystal threatened to divorce
him, take their kids, and then never see him again. She actually set Steve up pretty well.
She bought him a nice house to live in and even agreed to live in that house with him and the
kids while her own townhouse was being renovated. Crystal didn't want to make this transition any
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harder on the kids than it needed to be. Even though they were sleeping in separate bedrooms
and the kids knew something was off, she wanted to make the transition as smooth as possible.
So Crystal was really being as kind as possible to Steven as they were getting divorced. She had
stated that their relationship had started to feel like brother and sister. It was hitting that
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roommate phase and she didn't even feel like they were married anymore. The divorce was finalized
in June of that year and up until that point, Crystal had been completely financially supporting
Steven. She tried her best to make this as easy for all of them as possible. Living with your
ex-husband obviously isn't ideal and she did want to move on with her life. So she started dating
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someone else while she was still living with Steven. The summer that the divorce was finalized,
she began dating a local jeweler named Paul Hargrave. She and Paul spent a good amount of
time together and their relationship grew quickly. However, she was still living with Steven and the
kids and as you can imagine, since Steven clearly did not want the divorce in the first place,
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he was not keen on her moving on and dating someone else. It has been said by many that he had a sort
of obsessive love for her and the idea of her being with someone else drove him crazy. Of course,
Crystal knew that would be his reaction. So for a while, she tried to keep Paul a secret. He was
clearly the jealous type and at one point that summer, Crystal told a friend that she was afraid
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that he had been tracking and following her. It sounds like he had always kind of been this way
in their relationship, but there seemed to be one event that really set him off. Before they split
up, Steven, Crystal and the kids had planned to take a cruise together as a family. Some of her
other family, like her uncle who raised her, were also going to be there. But after their divorce
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was finalized, Crystal decided to invite Paul instead. To be clear, she invited Paul even though
Steven was also going to be there and as you can imagine, he was not down with that. Paul also
thought it was weird and was uncomfortable. So instead of uninviting Paul, she uninvited Steven.
All of this created a lot of drama, as you can imagine. Unfortunately, this trip would never
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even happen because on August 25th, 2017, Crystal McDowell went missing. The night before, she stayed
with Paul and she woke up Friday morning, got all her stuff together and had to be back at the house
for Steven because he had to go to work and she needed to take care of the two kids. Later that
day, she had two house showings. There is actually security footage of Crystal walking around Paul's
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house getting ready to go at around 7 a.m. and she leaves the house around 7 10 a.m. This is the
last time that Crystal was seen. She knew she had to get back to her kids and make sure they were
all prepared for what was to come. She had two house showings scheduled for that day, but they
were both canceled due to the storm. However, she wouldn't have made it to those showings if they
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hadn't been canceled because after leaving Paul's house, nobody had seen or heard from her. Paul said
he tried texting and calling her, but he figured she was busy trying to get prepared for the storm.
Steven said he also didn't hear from her even though he knew she was supposed to come home
for the kids that morning. Neither Paul nor Steven called the police and reported her missing.
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Paul did reach out to her uncle Jeff saying that he couldn't get a hold of her and asking if he
knew where she was. It wasn't until the next day, the 26th, that her uncle Jeff ended up making the
report. By this point, everyone was really concerned because Crystal was not the type of
person to not get back to her friends and family. She was constantly in touch with people and
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everyone knew that something had to be really wrong. She would never have just left without
telling someone, especially with this massive hurricane headed their way. The hurricane made
landfall on the 26th, the same day the police were alerted that she was missing. As you can imagine,
with the hurricane starting, it made starting an investigation extremely difficult. Not only were
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the streets flooding with water, but 911 and emergency teams were very preoccupied with rescue
efforts. Many of these investigators were dealing with the devastation first-hand. Their homes were
flooded, but most of them still showed up on Sunday to work with the intention of looking for Crystal.
Above all else, they were certain that she was not a victim of the hurricane, so they turned to her
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friends and family to try and learn more and figure out where she could have gone. At first,
investigators actually thought that her Uncle Jeff knew more than he was letting on. Even though he
was the first to report her missing, he did make the investigation harder. First of all, he actually
went to Crystal's home that weekend, despite the hurricane, and could have possibly tampered with
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a potential crime scene. I'm sure that wasn't intentional. When someone goes missing, you're
just going to do everything you can think of to do. I'm sure he thought going to the house would be
helpful. Obviously, that was a mistake. He also hired a private investigator, but investigators felt
that was odd because they were already doing the job, so they were suspicious of him. But there were
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two other people that investigators had their eyes on who seemed more likely to have been involved.
Obviously, that was Paul and Stephen. These two men had relationships with Crystal, had access to
Crystal, and both had not reported her missing. When it came to Stephen, he was very helpful and
cooperative with officers. He offered any information that he could and offered to help in any way he
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could. He told them about their marriage and how it ended, but he said it was very amicable, which
we all know is not true. He explained to them that they were still living together for their kids,
even though they were not together. From the outside looking in, that sounds pretty good.
These two are still living together to make things work for their kids. They must be friendly.
Stephen said that he got a text from Crystal the morning she disappeared around 7 a.m.,
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saying that she was on her way home. Specifically, the text said,
On my way. Do you have water? Looks like I might stay here with the kids. It seems just like rain.
This is the last time he claimed to have heard from her. There is also an alleged text from her
that came in at 9.30 a.m. that said she had changed her mind and was going to pick up the kids and
take them to Dallas. This is what Jeff, her uncle, told the police, and he said he had seen it on
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Stephen's phone, but this has never been corroborated. From the beginning, most of the
investigators, I say most because not all of them, felt that Stephen was innocent and they were more
unsure about Paul and Jeff. One thing about Stephen's interviews with police is that he
kept saying they should look into Paul. He was suspicious of Paul and so was Jeff. Jeff is also
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telling them that they should look into Paul. Jeff even told investigators that he felt Stephen was
a good guy and would never do anything to Crystal, but Paul, he wasn't so sure. He said that their
whole family had a bad feeling about Paul, and considering he was the last person to see her,
it was starting to look more and more likely that maybe Paul had something to do with her disappearance.
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When looking into Paul, huge red flags came up. Remember that home security footage of Crystal
walking through and leaving Paul's house? Well, Paul handed it over to the media before he handed
it over to the police. There wasn't anything incriminating about that footage, but they felt
that was really strange. So, this only fueled the idea that maybe Paul was involved. But before they
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even had a chance to really look into him, they got their first big break. On Monday the 28th,
Crystal's car was found partially submerged in a Motel 6 parking lot located about 13 miles away
from where she lived. A family member actually got a text from someone who said that they'd received
a Snapchat with a video of the car, and that's when they realized it belonged to a missing person.
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Because the streets were still so heavily flooded by this point, the police had to take an airboat
to reach the car. When they did, they realized that the keys were still inside. They started to
think that maybe someone ditched it and hoped that the car would be stolen. But the question was,
who did it? Was there a plan to have her car stolen, ruined by the flooding from the hurricane?
Or is it possible that the hurricane was part of the plan all along? So, her very flooded car was
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eventually towed to a crime scene lab. Unfortunately, the water had completely washed away any potential
evidence. See this black car right here? This Mercedes? Crystal McDowell's car was found
submerged in this Motel 6 parking lot, roughly 13 miles from her home. The cops were here busting
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in doors to find out where this lady is. Police say it was likely parked here before the water road.
As the days began to pass and the roads began to clear, two things happened. One, it became
extremely clear that Crystal did not run away. There was no activity on her phone, no activity
on her bank accounts, and without her car, it's obvious that she would have likely been found by
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now. Second, by this point, investigators and the media really started to pick up steam.
A Texas Ranger came in to work on the case and he was determined to find answers. How confident are
you that she was not a victim of this storm? I'm very confident she is not a victim of this storm.
We feel very, very confident that she's not a victim of this storm. Chambers County Sheriff
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Ryan Hawthorne says the investigation began before the storm, but Harvey's aftermath has made their
efforts more challenging. We're hampered by some of the flood issues, but we are as aggressive as
ever trying to locate and find Crystal McDowell. At this point, investigators still couldn't agree
on who to focus their energy on. Was Stephen involved? Was Paul involved? Is it possible her
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Uncle Jeff was involved? Because they had several persons of interest, progress on the case actually
started to slow down. Paul and Stephen both pointed their fingers at the other person during their
interviews and they both failed their polygraph tests. I think she was concerned for her well-being.
Paul Hargrave says he and Crystal started dating in June after her divorce and suggests the
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relationship with her ex-husband was not an amicable one. I think she was wanting to get
out of that situation as quickly as possible and move forward. I think that there was probably some
animosity between boyfriends and husbands and the husband probably might think the boyfriend had
something to do with it. The boyfriend might think the husband had something to do with it, which is
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exactly what we're faced with. Then investigators got their second big break from Crystal's car.
Obviously, they weren't able to get any evidence from inside the car, but they were able to get
CCTV footage from outside the car and that told them everything they needed to know. They knew that
if they could find who put that car there, chances are that same person had something to do with her
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disappearance. They ended up being able to pull surveillance footage from a Shell gas station
next to the Motel 6. On August 26th, the same day that Crystal went missing, video evidence shows
her black Mercedes being backed into a parking spot in the Motel 6 parking lot. Unfortunately,
it was too dark and rainy to see who was driving the car. However, five hours later, the same camera
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captured Stephen McDowell pulling into the gas station, getting out of his car and walking in
the direction of the motel. Investigators believe that Stephen was there checking to see if the car
had been stolen or not. Not only did he not get gas at the gas station, but he is also seen on camera
taking what looks like a big bag and stuffing it into a trash can, pushing it down deep enough so
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it couldn't be seen. Unfortunately, because of the storm, when investigators went to the trash can to
try and retrieve this bag, everything in the trash can have been washed away by the hurricane. Now,
I'm sure many of you are wondering how Stephen would have gotten home if he drove her car to the
parking lot and left it there, which was 13 miles away from his house. Investigators were wondering
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the same thing. When they looked at the areas surrounding the motel, they were reminded of
something. Early on, when they asked Stephen what he was doing the rest of that day, he mentioned
something about going to Walmart. It turns out there's a Walmart right across the interstate
from the Motel 6. So, they pulled security tapes from Walmart, and what did they see? Stephen
walking around the store. Not only that, but he also purchased a bike and was later seen riding
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that bike in the direction of his home. All of this is too much to ignore. At this point, Stephen
was still denying that he had anything to do with Crystal's disappearance. He was still trying to
act like the helpful ex-husband who was still friendly with his ex-wife. But investigators knew
that there was something more to this. Because they didn't have enough solid evidence at this point,
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they couldn't make an arrest, but they knew they were close. So, investigators reached out to
Crystal's Aunt Cindy and asked her to keep an eye on Stephen and see if he went anywhere or did
anything to indicate that he knew where Crystal was. Unfortunately, this didn't bring them any
new evidence. They also hoped to learn something new from Texas Ex Search, a volunteer search and
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rescue group that was conducting a large-scale search effort. But even after that, they had
nothing. At this point, they really needed Stephen to admit to what he'd done. After seeing the
footage of him in the parking lot, buying the bike, and riding at home, they pretty much knew
he was their guy. They started looking more into this amicable divorce that Stephen claimed they
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had. That's when they learned a lot. For starters, they learned that he threatened to kill himself
and his family if Crystal left him. They also found out about the cruise, how Paul was invited,
and Stephen was uninvited. They learned that Crystal had recently told him she was going to
stop financially supporting him. There was one more big thing they learned. One of the times that
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Crystal told him she was leaving, he actually took the kids for a few days and didn't tell her where
he'd taken them. At the time, she ended up calling 911 and reported that he had taken them. But he
returned, and she ended up dropping the charges. Out of everything they had learned, they knew that
the last bit of information was something that they could really use against Stephen. So, on
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September 8th, two weeks after Crystal had gone missing, they brought Stephen back in for more
questioning. They showed him the tapes, and at first, he adamantly denied that he was the one in
the tapes. Eventually, he reached a point where he couldn't deny it anymore and admitted that it was
him. However, he said that the tapes proved nothing. Seeing it was clear he wasn't going to
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admit the truth, was threatened with the reality that if he didn't speak up, his children would be
taken away. It turned out that the DA, who was heavily involved in the investigation, got in
contact with CPS and convinced them to agree to remove the children from Stephen's custody.
At that point, the kids were successfully placed with other family members and were safe. Stephen
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was told that if he didn't speak up, he would potentially never see them again. That's what
made Stephen crack. By this point, the pressure and guilt seemed to be destroying him. He had lost a
significant amount of weight in the last two weeks, and he looked tired and weak. Stephen agreed to
make a full confession, but he said he was tired and would give them what they wanted if they let
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him go home for the night to rest. He also agreed to take them to her body if they agreed not to
pursue the death penalty. Surprisingly, investigators agreed to all this, even though they knew he could
go home and make a run for it. But what other option did they have? At that point, there was
only circumstantial evidence against him, and if they arrested him that night, there was no guarantee
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they'd be able to keep him in custody without more solid evidence. So they hoped for the best.
Stephen was released, and that night he made a call to his daughter Krista. She was his daughter
from a previous marriage, and he had been in and out of her life for years. So he called her and
immediately started telling her, I'm innocent, saying he would never do such a thing. She believed
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him, believing that her father loved Crystal and would never have hurt her. She said she loved her
father, that he was a good guy, funny and fun, and she couldn't imagine he would do something like
that. In fact, she was under the impression that Stephen was still going on that cruise with Crystal
and that he planned to propose to her, even though they had recently gotten divorced.
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This was all Stephen's delusion, and Krista quickly figured that out. Despite him initially telling
her that he didn't do anything, eventually he told his daughter the truth. In their conversation,
he tells Krista that investigators are going to give him a lesser sentence if he can take them to
Crystal's body. Krista was shocked and said, well, you can't do that. You don't know where she is.
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You didn't do anything. That's when he spilled it all. He told her he didn't know where Crystal's
body was because he was the one who killed her. He told his daughter to come see him because it
would be the last time they might get to see each other, as investigators would be picking him up
the next morning. They did, and once they got him back in the interrogation room, he confessed to
everything. He said that morning, when Crystal got home from Paul's house, the two of them got into
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an argument, and he just snapped. He confessed to strangling Crystal from behind, so she didn't even
see it coming. Then he put her body in a garbage bag and disposed of her, all on the morning of
August 26th. I'm sure you're wondering where the kids were during all of this. Luckily, they were
sleeping through it all. They were still at home in bed. We confronted her at different times about
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those affairs. We confronted her. She tells me it's a state-of-the-art business. She says that I'm not
a dog, but that's what she says. Were you excited when that happened? Yeah. Is that when she told you that she
didn't love you anymore? Yeah. And it just happened? Yeah. Did you mean the suffocator? No. It just happened?
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It just happened. It just happened. I love her. And how did you suffocate? I squeezed her behind her.
Okay, like a chokehold or something?
Did she say anything when that was going on, or did you fight, or what happened? She just
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was scared. How did you eventually know that she was no longer alive? 15 days after she went missing,
38-year-old Crystal's body was found in a wooded area after Steven led investigators to the place
where he left her. Surprisingly, despite what many believed would happen, that Crystal could have been
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washed away. The hurricane didn't really impact where her body was left. She was still in the same
place. Steven McDowell was then arrested and brought to Chambers County Jail, where he sat for
two years awaiting trial. Finally, in June of 2019, Steven's murder trial began. If you thought he
would cooperate because he made a full confession, you'd be wrong. He made everything extremely
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difficult. There is a charge in Texas called crime of sudden passion, allowing a defendant to argue
that they killed someone as a reaction to sudden emotion or passion. Sometimes, people with this
charge can get only two years. Steven confessed, but now claimed he killed Crystal because of a
hug that got out of control. He testified that they were fighting, and he hugged her to calm her
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down, and suddenly she dropped dead. That's actually his defense. If convicted of this,
he would only face two years for accidentally killing someone due to a hug. Obviously, no one
in the courtroom bought this, and everyone in the public was horrified that this was his defense.
Luckily, the jury didn't buy it either. After five days of testimony and three and a half hours of
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deliberation, Steven was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 50 years in prison.
As for their poor children, who were eight and five by this point, they had to be told by their
Aunt Cindy what actually happened, what their dad did to their mother. They lost both parents in
very different ways. Crystal was an incredible mother who worked hard to give those kids the life
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she never had, and it is just so unnecessary and tragic what happened to her. As for Steven,
he will be eligible for parole in 2042. Her family and friends hope that by then, the decision is
made that he stays in prison for the full duration of his sentence. It is commonly believed that
Steven did this in the spur of the moment, that he didn't premeditate everything. I am curious
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about your opinion on that, because I feel that the timing with the hurricane is very convenient.
Let me know what you think below.
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Thank you.
A disappearance of a wife and airline stewardess is bad enough, but to have her disappear while
(00:05):
during a hurricane is worst. Was this plan to cover a murder? Was the timing of the murder planned
and in hopes of being covered up by the storm? Who could have done this? Who had the motive or
opportunity to plan and carry out this devious scheme? Join us today to find out more.
Today, we're going to be talking about Crystal McDowell, who disappeared the day before Hurricane
(00:27):
Harvey hit Houston, Texas. I'm sure many of you remember that time. A lot of you probably lived
through it and experienced it firsthand. Hurricane Harvey was absolutely devastating, and it was
probably one of the worst times for someone to go missing. Let me start by telling you about Crystal.
Crystal and Sirat was born on October 26, 1979, in Harris County, Texas, to her parents, Pamela and
(00:52):
Anthony. Crystal had a tough start from the beginning. She had a very strained relationship
with her parents because of their drug use, and they both ended up passing away within months of
each other when Crystal was only 11 years old. As if that weren't devastating enough, when Crystal was
13 years old, sources say she was kidnapped and held in a chicken coop until she was able to escape.
(01:14):
There is minimal information out there about this incident. We don't know who was taking care of her
at the time she was abducted, what that experience was like for her, or the outcome of it all, but I
did want to mention it. Eventually, though, things started looking up for her. She ended up moving in
with her uncle Jeff and was properly taken care of by members of her family. It wasn't an easy
(01:35):
childhood by any means, as you can imagine, but Crystal was determined to work as hard as she could
and create a better life for herself. In her mid-20s, she met a man named Steve McDowell.
Her aunt Cindy said that Crystal was very smitten the day she met him and really believed she had
met the man of her dreams. In 2007, they got married. Like so many relationships, from the
(01:59):
outside looking in, many people believed they had it all and that it was a great relationship
and that they were both really happy. But the truth was, things were not great. Crystal was
actually working as a flight attendant at the time for ExpressJet, and on top of constantly being
away from home, she was known to be unfaithful to her husband. She had a handful of affairs,
(02:19):
and that definitely impacted their relationship. She was not the only one causing issues.
Both she and Steve were said to be very toxic to each other, and that toxicity just worsened as
the years went on. In 2008, Crystal actually filed for divorce, but she ended up staying with Steve
because he threatened to kill himself if she left. Clearly, this is not a good foundation for a
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marriage, and they really struggled, but for a long time, they tried to make it work. They ended up
having two kids together, a boy and a girl, and for the next several years, things seemed to be
improving for them. Eventually, Crystal decided to leave her job as a flight attendant and became
a real estate agent in Baytown, Texas, where she had grown up her entire life. Crystal ended up
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being incredibly successful in her career and was the breadwinner for their family. Crystal did a
lot to support her husband and children. She wanted to give them the life that she never had.
She was such a passionate and loving mother. She cared about her kids more than anything in the
world. Crystal was very active on social media, and just by looking at her posts, you could tell
(03:25):
that her world really did revolve around her kids. Even with her busy work life, she always
made time for her family, but she always struggled to make things work in her marriage. And in 2017,
after 10 years of marriage, she decided it was finally time to leave and filed for divorce
once again. Just like when she tried to leave the first time, Steve yet again threatened his life.
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This time, she was not going to give in to his mind games. She was determined to get out of this
relationship. When threatening his own life didn't work to make Crystal stay, he ended up threatening
his children's lives. He said he would kill them first and then himself. She confided in a few
people about what he had said, but it hasn't been reported anywhere that she told authorities what
(04:09):
he said he would do if she left him. Here's the thing. It's not like Crystal threatened to divorce
him, take their kids, and then never see him again. She actually set Steve up pretty well.
She bought him a nice house to live in and even agreed to live in that house with him and the
kids while her own townhouse was being renovated. Crystal didn't want to make this transition any
(04:29):
harder on the kids than it needed to be. Even though they were sleeping in separate bedrooms
and the kids knew something was off, she wanted to make the transition as smooth as possible.
So Crystal was really being as kind as possible to Steven as they were getting divorced. She had
stated that their relationship had started to feel like brother and sister. It was hitting that
(04:50):
roommate phase and she didn't even feel like they were married anymore. The divorce was finalized
in June of that year and up until that point, Crystal had been completely financially supporting
Steven. She tried her best to make this as easy for all of them as possible. Living with your
ex-husband obviously isn't ideal and she did want to move on with her life. So she started dating
(05:12):
someone else while she was still living with Steven. The summer that the divorce was finalized,
she began dating a local jeweler named Paul Hargrave. She and Paul spent a good amount of
time together and their relationship grew quickly. However, she was still living with Steven and the
kids and as you can imagine, since Steven clearly did not want the divorce in the first place,
(05:32):
he was not keen on her moving on and dating someone else. It has been said by many that he had a sort
of obsessive love for her and the idea of her being with someone else drove him crazy. Of course,
Crystal knew that would be his reaction. So for a while, she tried to keep Paul a secret. He was
clearly the jealous type and at one point that summer, Crystal told a friend that she was afraid
(05:54):
that he had been tracking and following her. It sounds like he had always kind of been this way
in their relationship, but there seemed to be one event that really set him off. Before they split
up, Steven, Crystal and the kids had planned to take a cruise together as a family. Some of her
other family, like her uncle who raised her, were also going to be there. But after their divorce
(06:15):
was finalized, Crystal decided to invite Paul instead. To be clear, she invited Paul even though
Steven was also going to be there and as you can imagine, he was not down with that. Paul also
thought it was weird and was uncomfortable. So instead of uninviting Paul, she uninvited Steven.
All of this created a lot of drama, as you can imagine. Unfortunately, this trip would never
(06:38):
even happen because on August 25th, 2017, Crystal McDowell went missing. The night before, she stayed
with Paul and she woke up Friday morning, got all her stuff together and had to be back at the house
for Steven because he had to go to work and she needed to take care of the two kids. Later that
day, she had two house showings. There is actually security footage of Crystal walking around Paul's
(07:02):
house getting ready to go at around 7 a.m. and she leaves the house around 7 10 a.m. This is the
last time that Crystal was seen. She knew she had to get back to her kids and make sure they were
all prepared for what was to come. She had two house showings scheduled for that day, but they
were both canceled due to the storm. However, she wouldn't have made it to those showings if they
(07:23):
hadn't been canceled because after leaving Paul's house, nobody had seen or heard from her. Paul said
he tried texting and calling her, but he figured she was busy trying to get prepared for the storm.
Steven said he also didn't hear from her even though he knew she was supposed to come home
for the kids that morning. Neither Paul nor Steven called the police and reported her missing.
(07:44):
Paul did reach out to her uncle Jeff saying that he couldn't get a hold of her and asking if he
knew where she was. It wasn't until the next day, the 26th, that her uncle Jeff ended up making the
report. By this point, everyone was really concerned because Crystal was not the type of
person to not get back to her friends and family. She was constantly in touch with people and
(08:05):
everyone knew that something had to be really wrong. She would never have just left without
telling someone, especially with this massive hurricane headed their way. The hurricane made
landfall on the 26th, the same day the police were alerted that she was missing. As you can imagine,
with the hurricane starting, it made starting an investigation extremely difficult. Not only were
(08:26):
the streets flooding with water, but 911 and emergency teams were very preoccupied with rescue
efforts. Many of these investigators were dealing with the devastation first-hand. Their homes were
flooded, but most of them still showed up on Sunday to work with the intention of looking for Crystal.
Above all else, they were certain that she was not a victim of the hurricane, so they turned to her
(08:48):
friends and family to try and learn more and figure out where she could have gone. At first,
investigators actually thought that her Uncle Jeff knew more than he was letting on. Even though he
was the first to report her missing, he did make the investigation harder. First of all, he actually
went to Crystal's home that weekend, despite the hurricane, and could have possibly tampered with
(09:09):
a potential crime scene. I'm sure that wasn't intentional. When someone goes missing, you're
just going to do everything you can think of to do. I'm sure he thought going to the house would be
helpful. Obviously, that was a mistake. He also hired a private investigator, but investigators felt
that was odd because they were already doing the job, so they were suspicious of him. But there were
(09:30):
two other people that investigators had their eyes on who seemed more likely to have been involved.
Obviously, that was Paul and Stephen. These two men had relationships with Crystal, had access to
Crystal, and both had not reported her missing. When it came to Stephen, he was very helpful and
cooperative with officers. He offered any information that he could and offered to help in any way he
(09:52):
could. He told them about their marriage and how it ended, but he said it was very amicable, which
we all know is not true. He explained to them that they were still living together for their kids,
even though they were not together. From the outside looking in, that sounds pretty good.
These two are still living together to make things work for their kids. They must be friendly.
Stephen said that he got a text from Crystal the morning she disappeared around 7 a.m.,
(10:16):
saying that she was on her way home. Specifically, the text said,
On my way. Do you have water? Looks like I might stay here with the kids. It seems just like rain.
This is the last time he claimed to have heard from her. There is also an alleged text from her
that came in at 9.30 a.m. that said she had changed her mind and was going to pick up the kids and
take them to Dallas. This is what Jeff, her uncle, told the police, and he said he had seen it on
(10:42):
Stephen's phone, but this has never been corroborated. From the beginning, most of the
investigators, I say most because not all of them, felt that Stephen was innocent and they were more
unsure about Paul and Jeff. One thing about Stephen's interviews with police is that he
kept saying they should look into Paul. He was suspicious of Paul and so was Jeff. Jeff is also
(11:03):
telling them that they should look into Paul. Jeff even told investigators that he felt Stephen was
a good guy and would never do anything to Crystal, but Paul, he wasn't so sure. He said that their
whole family had a bad feeling about Paul, and considering he was the last person to see her,
it was starting to look more and more likely that maybe Paul had something to do with her disappearance.
(11:24):
When looking into Paul, huge red flags came up. Remember that home security footage of Crystal
walking through and leaving Paul's house? Well, Paul handed it over to the media before he handed
it over to the police. There wasn't anything incriminating about that footage, but they felt
that was really strange. So, this only fueled the idea that maybe Paul was involved. But before they
(11:46):
even had a chance to really look into him, they got their first big break. On Monday the 28th,
Crystal's car was found partially submerged in a Motel 6 parking lot located about 13 miles away
from where she lived. A family member actually got a text from someone who said that they'd received
a Snapchat with a video of the car, and that's when they realized it belonged to a missing person.
(12:08):
Because the streets were still so heavily flooded by this point, the police had to take an airboat
to reach the car. When they did, they realized that the keys were still inside. They started to
think that maybe someone ditched it and hoped that the car would be stolen. But the question was,
who did it? Was there a plan to have her car stolen, ruined by the flooding from the hurricane?
Or is it possible that the hurricane was part of the plan all along? So, her very flooded car was
(12:34):
eventually towed to a crime scene lab. Unfortunately, the water had completely washed away any potential
evidence. See this black car right here? This Mercedes? Crystal McDowell's car was found
submerged in this Motel 6 parking lot, roughly 13 miles from her home. The cops were here busting
(12:54):
in doors to find out where this lady is. Police say it was likely parked here before the water road.
As the days began to pass and the roads began to clear, two things happened. One, it became
extremely clear that Crystal did not run away. There was no activity on her phone, no activity
on her bank accounts, and without her car, it's obvious that she would have likely been found by
(13:18):
now. Second, by this point, investigators and the media really started to pick up steam.
A Texas Ranger came in to work on the case and he was determined to find answers. How confident are
you that she was not a victim of this storm? I'm very confident she is not a victim of this storm.
We feel very, very confident that she's not a victim of this storm. Chambers County Sheriff
(13:40):
Ryan Hawthorne says the investigation began before the storm, but Harvey's aftermath has made their
efforts more challenging. We're hampered by some of the flood issues, but we are as aggressive as
ever trying to locate and find Crystal McDowell. At this point, investigators still couldn't agree
on who to focus their energy on. Was Stephen involved? Was Paul involved? Is it possible her
(14:06):
Uncle Jeff was involved? Because they had several persons of interest, progress on the case actually
started to slow down. Paul and Stephen both pointed their fingers at the other person during their
interviews and they both failed their polygraph tests. I think she was concerned for her well-being.
Paul Hargrave says he and Crystal started dating in June after her divorce and suggests the
(14:28):
relationship with her ex-husband was not an amicable one. I think she was wanting to get
out of that situation as quickly as possible and move forward. I think that there was probably some
animosity between boyfriends and husbands and the husband probably might think the boyfriend had
something to do with it. The boyfriend might think the husband had something to do with it, which is
(14:48):
exactly what we're faced with. Then investigators got their second big break from Crystal's car.
Obviously, they weren't able to get any evidence from inside the car, but they were able to get
CCTV footage from outside the car and that told them everything they needed to know. They knew that
if they could find who put that car there, chances are that same person had something to do with her
(15:09):
disappearance. They ended up being able to pull surveillance footage from a Shell gas station
next to the Motel 6. On August 26th, the same day that Crystal went missing, video evidence shows
her black Mercedes being backed into a parking spot in the Motel 6 parking lot. Unfortunately,
it was too dark and rainy to see who was driving the car. However, five hours later, the same camera
(15:33):
captured Stephen McDowell pulling into the gas station, getting out of his car and walking in
the direction of the motel. Investigators believe that Stephen was there checking to see if the car
had been stolen or not. Not only did he not get gas at the gas station, but he is also seen on camera
taking what looks like a big bag and stuffing it into a trash can, pushing it down deep enough so
(15:56):
it couldn't be seen. Unfortunately, because of the storm, when investigators went to the trash can to
try and retrieve this bag, everything in the trash can have been washed away by the hurricane. Now,
I'm sure many of you are wondering how Stephen would have gotten home if he drove her car to the
parking lot and left it there, which was 13 miles away from his house. Investigators were wondering
(16:18):
the same thing. When they looked at the areas surrounding the motel, they were reminded of
something. Early on, when they asked Stephen what he was doing the rest of that day, he mentioned
something about going to Walmart. It turns out there's a Walmart right across the interstate
from the Motel 6. So, they pulled security tapes from Walmart, and what did they see? Stephen
walking around the store. Not only that, but he also purchased a bike and was later seen riding
(16:43):
that bike in the direction of his home. All of this is too much to ignore. At this point, Stephen
was still denying that he had anything to do with Crystal's disappearance. He was still trying to
act like the helpful ex-husband who was still friendly with his ex-wife. But investigators knew
that there was something more to this. Because they didn't have enough solid evidence at this point,
(17:04):
they couldn't make an arrest, but they knew they were close. So, investigators reached out to
Crystal's Aunt Cindy and asked her to keep an eye on Stephen and see if he went anywhere or did
anything to indicate that he knew where Crystal was. Unfortunately, this didn't bring them any
new evidence. They also hoped to learn something new from Texas Ex Search, a volunteer search and
(17:25):
rescue group that was conducting a large-scale search effort. But even after that, they had
nothing. At this point, they really needed Stephen to admit to what he'd done. After seeing the
footage of him in the parking lot, buying the bike, and riding at home, they pretty much knew
he was their guy. They started looking more into this amicable divorce that Stephen claimed they
(17:46):
had. That's when they learned a lot. For starters, they learned that he threatened to kill himself
and his family if Crystal left him. They also found out about the cruise, how Paul was invited,
and Stephen was uninvited. They learned that Crystal had recently told him she was going to
stop financially supporting him. There was one more big thing they learned. One of the times that
(18:06):
Crystal told him she was leaving, he actually took the kids for a few days and didn't tell her where
he'd taken them. At the time, she ended up calling 911 and reported that he had taken them. But he
returned, and she ended up dropping the charges. Out of everything they had learned, they knew that
the last bit of information was something that they could really use against Stephen. So, on
(18:28):
September 8th, two weeks after Crystal had gone missing, they brought Stephen back in for more
questioning. They showed him the tapes, and at first, he adamantly denied that he was the one in
the tapes. Eventually, he reached a point where he couldn't deny it anymore and admitted that it was
him. However, he said that the tapes proved nothing. Seeing it was clear he wasn't going to
(18:58):
admit the truth, was threatened with the reality that if he didn't speak up, his children would be
taken away. It turned out that the DA, who was heavily involved in the investigation, got in
contact with CPS and convinced them to agree to remove the children from Stephen's custody.
At that point, the kids were successfully placed with other family members and were safe. Stephen
(19:20):
was told that if he didn't speak up, he would potentially never see them again. That's what
made Stephen crack. By this point, the pressure and guilt seemed to be destroying him. He had lost a
significant amount of weight in the last two weeks, and he looked tired and weak. Stephen agreed to
make a full confession, but he said he was tired and would give them what they wanted if they let
(19:40):
him go home for the night to rest. He also agreed to take them to her body if they agreed not to
pursue the death penalty. Surprisingly, investigators agreed to all this, even though they knew he could
go home and make a run for it. But what other option did they have? At that point, there was
only circumstantial evidence against him, and if they arrested him that night, there was no guarantee
(20:03):
they'd be able to keep him in custody without more solid evidence. So they hoped for the best.
Stephen was released, and that night he made a call to his daughter Krista. She was his daughter
from a previous marriage, and he had been in and out of her life for years. So he called her and
immediately started telling her, I'm innocent, saying he would never do such a thing. She believed
(20:25):
him, believing that her father loved Crystal and would never have hurt her. She said she loved her
father, that he was a good guy, funny and fun, and she couldn't imagine he would do something like
that. In fact, she was under the impression that Stephen was still going on that cruise with Crystal
and that he planned to propose to her, even though they had recently gotten divorced.
(20:46):
This was all Stephen's delusion, and Krista quickly figured that out. Despite him initially telling
her that he didn't do anything, eventually he told his daughter the truth. In their conversation,
he tells Krista that investigators are going to give him a lesser sentence if he can take them to
Crystal's body. Krista was shocked and said, well, you can't do that. You don't know where she is.
(21:09):
You didn't do anything. That's when he spilled it all. He told her he didn't know where Crystal's
body was because he was the one who killed her. He told his daughter to come see him because it
would be the last time they might get to see each other, as investigators would be picking him up
the next morning. They did, and once they got him back in the interrogation room, he confessed to
everything. He said that morning, when Crystal got home from Paul's house, the two of them got into
(21:34):
an argument, and he just snapped. He confessed to strangling Crystal from behind, so she didn't even
see it coming. Then he put her body in a garbage bag and disposed of her, all on the morning of
August 26th. I'm sure you're wondering where the kids were during all of this. Luckily, they were
sleeping through it all. They were still at home in bed. We confronted her at different times about
(21:55):
those affairs. We confronted her. She tells me it's a state-of-the-art business. She says that I'm not
a dog, but that's what she says. Were you excited when that happened? Yeah. Is that when she told you that she
didn't love you anymore? Yeah. And it just happened? Yeah. Did you mean the suffocator? No. It just happened?
(22:21):
It just happened. It just happened. I love her. And how did you suffocate? I squeezed her behind her.
Okay, like a chokehold or something?
Did she say anything when that was going on, or did you fight, or what happened? She just
(22:44):
was scared. How did you eventually know that she was no longer alive? 15 days after she went missing,
38-year-old Crystal's body was found in a wooded area after Steven led investigators to the place
where he left her. Surprisingly, despite what many believed would happen, that Crystal could have been
(23:06):
washed away. The hurricane didn't really impact where her body was left. She was still in the same
place. Steven McDowell was then arrested and brought to Chambers County Jail, where he sat for
two years awaiting trial. Finally, in June of 2019, Steven's murder trial began. If you thought he
would cooperate because he made a full confession, you'd be wrong. He made everything extremely
(23:29):
difficult. There is a charge in Texas called crime of sudden passion, allowing a defendant to argue
that they killed someone as a reaction to sudden emotion or passion. Sometimes, people with this
charge can get only two years. Steven confessed, but now claimed he killed Crystal because of a
hug that got out of control. He testified that they were fighting, and he hugged her to calm her
(23:51):
down, and suddenly she dropped dead. That's actually his defense. If convicted of this,
he would only face two years for accidentally killing someone due to a hug. Obviously, no one
in the courtroom bought this, and everyone in the public was horrified that this was his defense.
Luckily, the jury didn't buy it either. After five days of testimony and three and a half hours of
(24:14):
deliberation, Steven was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 50 years in prison.
As for their poor children, who were eight and five by this point, they had to be told by their
Aunt Cindy what actually happened, what their dad did to their mother. They lost both parents in
very different ways. Crystal was an incredible mother who worked hard to give those kids the life
(24:35):
she never had, and it is just so unnecessary and tragic what happened to her. As for Steven,
he will be eligible for parole in 2042. Her family and friends hope that by then, the decision is
made that he stays in prison for the full duration of his sentence. It is commonly believed that
Steven did this in the spur of the moment, that he didn't premeditate everything. I am curious
(24:58):
about your opinion on that, because I feel that the timing with the hurricane is very convenient.
Let me know what you think below.
(28:32):
Thank you.
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