HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — A 34-year-old man has been arrested and charged in connection with his mother-in-law's death earlier this month, according to Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.
According to Gonzalez, Xavier Jawin Howard is charged with murder and is accused of strangling 53-year-old Tammy Mouton and then setting his own house on fire to conceal her death around 5 a.m. on Jan. 7 in the 2700 block of Trementina Drive, just south of Highway 249.
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Authorities said Howard initially left the scene of the burning house, but then returned minutes later to help neighbors get his two children out of the home.
Investigators said Mouton had recently moved into the house.
“She didn’t live here. She was being a grandma,” Tammy Mouton's daughter, Britanny, said at the time of her mother's death. “Stayed the night to take the kids to school, being a grandma ... doing her part.”
Howard was arrested and booked into the Harris County Jail.
Mouton's death was questionable from the beginning when investigators said her injuries were not consistent with what would have happened during a house fire.
Investigators said Mouton's granddaughters (the suspect's children), ages 8 and 10, were hospitalized with smoke inhalation. Howard was also hospitalized for the same reason.
Fire officials said the fire was contained in a front room of the house. The fire marshal said there were no working smoke detectors inside the home. The origin and cause of the fire remain under investigation.