From left: Jyron Lee, Nadia Lee (Houston Police Department) and Nancy Reed (McCoy and Harrison Funeral Home).
A Texas man will spend decades in prison for murdering his 2-year-old daughter and dumping her body in a bayou before then killing his girlfriend.
Jyron Lee, aged 29, received a sentence of 56 years in prison on Monday for the killing of his girlfriend, Nancy Reed, and their 2-year-old daughter Nadia Lee in 2022. He admitted to the murder in a plea deal that led to the dismissal of a capital murder charge that could have meant a life sentence.
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The investigation by Houston police began on October 18, 2022, after Reed’s body was found in a motel where they were staying long-term. She had been strangled to death. It was during this inquiry that authorities discovered Nadia was missing and suspected she had also been killed.
Authorities searched Lee’s apartment and found evidence such as clothes, sheets, and towels stained with blood. They also found a bloodstained Minnie Mouse bed with signs of disturbance and human hair on the wall nearby, according to an arrest affidavit citing probable cause. In questioning with detectives, Lee stated that he had left Nadia in his unlocked apartment while he took out the trash. Upon his return, he claimed she was missing, assuming Reed had come and taken her.
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Cops learned Lee, in an earlier interview, said Nadia was with Reed’s relatives. But the relatives said they last saw Nadia some four days prior to Reed’s murder when she left her grandmother’s house with Lee. He had picked her up that day from her foster parents’ home, where she had stayed since July 2021.
A search of Lee’s phone found more sinister actions. After he picked Nadia up from the foster care home, he texted Reed, “My family will be completed when you come back f—k whoever you with right now give me my family.” Surveillance video from Lee’s apartment showed Nadia was last seen alive with him on Oct. 16, 2022. Cops believe she was killed on this day.
Cops also found concerning Google searches on his phone including “is whooping your child a sin?” is whooping kids a sin?” and “in the Bible, is it a sin not to spank a misbehaving child?” He also looked up “how long it takes for a dead body to smell?”
While investigators had enough evidence to charge Lee with Nadia’s murder in December 2022, it wasn’t until March 2023 that authorities found Nadia’s body in a bayou not far from his apartment. Cops never publicly divulged Nadia’s cause of death.
