{"id":1345492,"date":"2024-08-09T03:43:02","date_gmt":"2024-08-09T08:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1345492"},"modified":"2024-08-13T03:17:59","modified_gmt":"2024-08-13T08:17:59","slug":"death-penalty-for-man-accused-of-killing-audrii-cunningham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1345492","title":{"rendered":"Death penalty for man accused of killing Audrii Cunningham"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"POLK COUNTY \u00e2\u20ac\u201d According to our news partner KETK, the Polk County District Attorney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Office will be seeking the death penalty for the man accused of killing 11-year-old Audrii Cunningham in February. A trial date for Don Steven McDougal has not been set as the case is still an open investigation. McDougal is facing one charge of capital murder for Cunningham\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death. Officials said a final decision will be made once all evidence has been received.<\/p>\n

He is charged with capital murder because Audrii was under 15, and because the killing allegedly occurred while he was committing the felony of kidnapping her.<\/p>\n

The Polk County Sheriff\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Office said McDougal was a family friend of the Cunningham\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and lived on their property in a camper. On Feb. 15, McDougal left with Audrii in his 2003 Chevrolet Suburban with the supposed plan of dropping her off at the school bus stop outside of the subdivision.<\/p>\n

Authorities said Audrii never made it to Creekside Elementary school that day. An Amber Alert was issued for Audrii later that night and law enforcement began searching for her.<\/p>\n

Polk County Sheriff Byron Lyons said with the help of the Trinity River Authority, Audrii\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s body was found in the river near SH 59 south on the Polk and San Jacinto county line on Feb. 20.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We were able to contact TRA, Trinity River Authority, and they slowed down the outflow from the reservoir and it allowed the water to go down, and her body was discovered there in the water,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Lyons said.<\/p>\n

Her body was reportedly found tied to a large rock and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153rope used was consistent with rope that was observed in McDougal\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vehicle on a traffic stop two days prior.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Lyons said cell phone analysis, videos collected by authorities and information from McDougal helped pinpoint several points of interest in the search for Audrii.<\/p>\n

Audrii\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s body was then taken to the Harris County medical Examiner\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Office where they ruled her cause of death as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153homicidal violence with blunt head trauma.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

POLK COUNTY \u00e2\u20ac\u201d According to our news partner KETK, the Polk County District Attorney\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Office will be seeking the death penalty for the man accused of killing 11-year-old Audrii Cunningham in February. A trial date for Don Steven McDougal has not been set as the case is still an open investigation. McDougal is facing one … Continue reading Death penalty for man accused of killing Audrii Cunningham<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1345494,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2024\/08\/2024-08-09_034237-200x200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1345492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 18:03:20","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2024\/08\/2024-08-09_034237-200x200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1345492"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1345495,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1345492\/revisions\/1345495"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1345494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1345492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1345492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1345492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}