Convicted child rapist Roy Dabney charged in two Houston murders linked to DNA evidence

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — A man convicted of sexually assaulting a child more than a decade ago has been linked to two serious murders in the Fifth Ward, Houston police said.

Roy Dabney, who is serving a 25-year sentence in Fort Stockton, returned to Houston this week to hear the latest charges against him. Investigators say DNA evidence uncovered with new tests is what helped them solve the 17- and 14-year-old cases.

On February 28, 2007, 43-year-old Hattie McFarland was found beaten to death in an abandoned white house on Davis Street. The police discovered a bloody brick next to Hattie’s body. At the time, no eyewitnesses came forward and no physical evidence was ever tested, according to court documents.

Three years later, in July 2010, police found Lavenia Glover, 28, face down, dead on a mattress in a brick house on Newhoff Street, about half a mile from the place where McFarland’s body was left. The crime scenes were similar; Glover’s skull was also struck, police said.

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“Both women were sex workers, both weighed exactly 125 pounds, were smaller in stature,” HPD Sgt. Mike Burrow, who recently began looking into both unsolved murders, said.

Police found a man’s DNA on Glover, but no leads. A woman reported seeing Glover walking with a man wearing a blue and white striped shirt and black shorts. Detectives found the video of that man at a nearby convenience store, but investigators were unable to identify him at that time. The case went cold.

“I just had a face on a camera,” Burrow said.

Then, in 2012, they got a name: Roy Dabney.

When Dabney was convicted of cocaine possession, his DNA entered CODIS, the FBI’s national DNA database, and Houston police got a hit on Glover’s case. Investigators now knew it was his DNA on her body, they say. They also managed to connect him with another important case.

In 2006, an 11-year-old girl was picked up, sexually assaulted, then left on the side of Polly Street. Investigators confirmed that Dabney’s DNA was also on her, and in 2013, Dabney was sentenced to 25 years in prison for aggravated sexual assault.

But Glover’s case was never closed despite DNA findings in 2012 until Sgt. Burrow took another look this year. In doing so, he realized McFarland’s RELATED the crime was also still unsolved.

“We thought there were opportunities to test elements of evidence that had never been tested before,” Burrow said.

So the sergeant tested the brick from McFarland’s murder, along with More items from Glover’s sexual assault kit. Investigators say Dabney’s DNA was largely present.

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Police also compared surveillance video to Dabney’s previous booking photos, confirming that the man in the blue and white shirt was him.

“It’s hard to call families out of the blue,” said Burrow, who has been in touch with Glover’s and McFarland’s families. “It kind of brings a wave of emotions for them. But it feels good to bring justice in those cases.”

As Dabney was arraigned Wednesday for the two murders, he said nothing in court. The state has announced that it has DNA that proves he killed Hattie and Lavenia.

“Color me unimpressed saying the DNA will tie him to these cases,” said Jason Marquez, Dabney’s court-appointed attorney. “It’s a flawed science. (DNA) alone is not enough.”

“DNA helps us solve (cold) cases more than anything,” said Sepi Zimmer, a Harris County prosecutor who works on cold cases. “I think there are a lot of people who think they got away with these crimes and I want to tell them they didn’t. We are working on these cold cases. We are trying to solve them. And we will have them prosecuted.”

Investigators believe Dabney may have other victims. We reached out to him to ask about the allegations, but he did not respond to our requests for an interview.

Dabney is eligible for parole next year. If he gets out of jail, he’ll go straight to the Harris County Jail because the judge set his bond at $2 million for both crimes.

If prosecutors don’t offer Dabney a plea deal, they say they are prepared to take him to trial.

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