A Houston woman accused of orchestrating the 2021 murder of her ex-girlfriend's family pleaded guilty this week to downgraded murder charges, accepting 40 years in state prison just as her capital murder trial was set to begin. Alexus Williams had briefly rejected the same deal days earlier, only to sign it hours before jury selection would have started.
Williams was charged with three counts of capital murder in 2022 in connection with the June 30, 2021 killings of Donyavia Lagway, 29, Gregory Carhee, 35, and their 6-year-old daughter Harmony Carhee, according to the Houston Chronicle. Prosecutors accused her of hiring gunman Xavier Davis to kill Lagway, her former girlfriend, out of revenge after the two split roughly a week before the shooting. Williams's defense attorneys countered that she intended only for Davis to rob the family, not kill anyone.
The shooting unfolded around 10:30 p.m. inside the Totoro Place Apartments at 12101 Fondren Road in southwest Houston, in a home invasion that lasted about four minutes, according to Click2Houston. Officers responded after the couple's surviving 10-year-old daughter FaceTimed her grandmother from inside the apartment. Lagway was pregnant at the time she and Carhee were killed and was a mother of four, per Crime Online.
Digital Evidence Tied Williams to the Scene
Williams had briefly lived with Lagway and her family at the Fondren Road apartment before their relationship ended about a week before the killings, the Chronicle's reporting shows. Prosecutors say evidence at Davis's 2025 trial showed Williams guided him to the apartment because he did not know where the family lived. Lt. Joshua Horn testified that Davis carried out orders Williams gave after she orchestrated the killing.
Prosecutors revealed during pre-trial hearings that Williams was on a FaceTime call with Davis during or immediately after the killings, allowing her to view the scene in real time, according to WSB-TV. Investigators reportedly spent months extracting encrypted mobile data before charging her. Williams was not arrested until eight months after the shooting, and in the interim she attended funeral services for Lagway and her family members, a fact former prosecutor Sean Teare cited during court proceedings, per KHOU.
Surviving Children and the Getaway Vehicle
The couple's 10-year-old daughter was shot in the arm during the attack and later testified at Davis's trial at age 14, while Lagway's 1-year-old son was not shot. Davis's attorneys said he did not know the family or that children would be in the home. About an hour before the Fondren Road shooting, Davis stole a Jeep Compass during an aggravated robbery in the 10000 block of Larkwood, which police identified as the getaway vehicle after surveillance footage tracked it leaving the complex, according to FOX 26 Houston.
Davis unexpectedly pleaded guilty to capital murder on March 24, 2025, just before opening statements were set to begin, sending his case directly to a jury punishment phase. That phase included 18 days of testimony and ended with Davis sentenced to death by lethal injection in April 2025, according to KHOU. He remains on death row awaiting execution.
A Deal Rejected, Revoked, Then Signed
Williams's path to her own plea was not straightforward. She rejected a 40-year prison sentence on a Thursday, prompting prosecutor Sepi Zimmer to revoke the offer and declare the state would not put it back on the table. But prosecutors and defense lawyers returned Tuesday with another nearly identical offer, and lawyers waited roughly three hours for Williams to agree to come to court and decide. She signed the plea deal by noon, per the Chronicle's reporting.
Defense attorney Mario Madrid argued the state may have proved Williams was a party to the crime but not that she masterminded it or expected payment. Had she rejected the deal for good, her capital murder trial would have started that Friday, and a conviction would have carried a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without parole. Williams did not pull the trigger herself. She is scheduled to return to court Friday for victim impact statements.
What the Plea Means Under Texas Law
Under Texas law, a first-degree murder conviction carries a sentence ranging from five to 99 years or life, with parole eligibility after 30 calendar years served, while capital murder convictions require either life without parole or a death sentence, according to Deandra Grant Law. That distinction explains why Williams's 40-year deal, with parole eligibility in 30 years, represented a markedly different outcome than the capital charges she originally faced.
Davis's death sentence also carried a broader price tag and legal significance beyond his own case. A 2025 annual report by the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty found Harris County spent $1.8 million in taxpayer funds solely on defense expenses for his punishment trial, even though he had already pleaded guilty before that phase began. His sentence also contributed to a rare surge locally, marking the first time in more than a decade that a Harris County jury issued more than one death sentence in a single calendar year, according to KERA News, which noted a second Harris County death sentence followed in June 2025.
