Lucky Ward

Lucky Ward (born November 1, 1964) is an African-American man who was convicted of strangling two people in September 2010 in Houston, Texas, while he was homeless, out of his psychotropic medications, and addicted to crack cocaine. He was accused of committing four other homicides, one dating back to 1985, none of which were ever prosecuted. He was convicted and sentenced to death on one count of capital murder based on the theory that two different individuals, a Hispanic transgender woman named Carlos "Gypsy" Rodriguez and an African-American woman named Reita Long, were killed as part of the "same scheme or course of conduct." This conviction was obtained after a 10-year delay in his trial. Since his arrest in 2010, he has consistently denied any knowledge of Rodriguez's death whereas he admitted responsibility for Long's death once he learned of her death, although he denied an intent to kill her. He has been on Texas's death row and is currently appealing his conviction and sentence.

Early life and crimes
Lucky Ward was born on November 1, 1964, in Brazoria County, Texas. He grew up in an unstable home, where he was physically and mentally abused. His mother gave him to her brother, who was known to sexually abuse children, when Lucky was a baby; his uncle raised him until he was about seven. He later spent some time with his violent father who once dragged him behind a car to which he was chained. These experiences affected his mental health and led him to be diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and bipolar disorder. At age 14, he sexually assaulted an 83-year-old woman in Brazoria County. He was arrested and confessed the same day.

After spending two years in juvenile prison, he was released at age 16 and sent back to his abusive family despite a recommendation that he not be returned to his mother. Soon thereafter, he was accused of assault, tried as an adult, and sent to adult prison at age 16. He was released from prison briefly in 1985. After being sent back to prison in 1985, he was in the custody of the Texas prison system until 2006. Upon being released, Ward became homeless and addicted to drugs.

From 2006 until his arrest for the capital crime in November 2010, he was repeatedly arrested and served time in the Harris County jail for a variety of crimes, including soliciting prostitutes; possession and distribution of controlled substances; resisting arrest; theft; failure to identify himself to law enforcement and criminal mischief. He was housed in the section of the jail used for people with mental illness and given psychotropic medications. He was written up for numerous infractions and accused of assaulting another inmate. He showed jail staff how he had been able to unlock his cell; an educational video was made of him demonstrating the process. But he never attempted an escape.

Murders
Ward is accused of targeting homeless women and trans women. At trial, the state attempted to prove that the murders of Long and Rodriquez were part of the “same scheme or course of conduct.” Ward is challenging this finding on appeal. Each victim was allegedly strangled, but none were sexually assaulted.

While Ward awaited trial for Long and Rodriguez's murder, law enforcement endeavored to link him to several other unsolved murders. One of these was the 1985 murder of Birdell Louis. Ward was not considered a suspect in Louis's death until 2013 and only because of law enforcements express intent to try to link him to other crimes; during trial, it was revealed that the Long investigation's lead detective directed a cold case detective to look for unsolved strangulation cases that police might be able to link to Ward. The cold case of a woman named Birdell Louis was identified because it had occurred when Ward was not in prison; her body had been found behind a gas station near downtown Houston. Initially, the primary suspect in Louis's murder was her abusive ex-boyfriend who had reportedly choked and threatened her shortly before her death; but that investigation was, for unknown reasons, abandoned. During Ward's trial, a latent print examiner testified that Ward's palm print could not be excluded as a match to a partial palm print lifted from a pair of glasses found near Louis's body. No other physical evidence linked Ward to the murder. Louis's ex-boyfriend's fingerprints were never obtained or compared to the prints found at the crime scene; not was his DNA collected or his profile compared to the many items from which Ward was excluded. Ward was not indicted for Louis's murder, but details of the crime were presented to his jury in 2020 as if he had been the perpetrator.

The second suspected victim was 51-year-old Ruben "Myra Chanel" Ical, a transgender woman. She was found dead in a grassy area near a highway on January 18, 2010. Investigators spent ten years attempting to link Ward to Ical's murder. Right before his trial began, using a new probabilistic genotyping software known as “STRmix,” the State claimed that one swab from Ical's body contained a mixture of DNA from at least four different contributors. After assuming that the mixture contained only four contributors, an analyst claimed that Ward could not be excluded from one of the four. This was the first time the Houston crime lab had ever used this software. Ward was excluded as a contributor to the large quantity of more traditional DNA testing of materials gathered from that crime scene. The testimony regarding his possible inclusion in a mixture of four or more contributors to a single sample was the only evidence of any kind connecting Ward to Ical's murder. He was never charged with this crime but testimony about the murder was put before his jury during his 2020 trial.

Houston law enforcement endeavored to attribute another unsolved murder to Ward that had occurred in 2010. On June 18, the partially decomposed body of 24-year-old Raquel Antoinette Mundy, a single mother with two children from Galveston, was found in a grassy field on 300 St. Charles, near some railroad tracks. While dropping off her mother and children at a Greyhound bus station, Mundy's car was towed, leaving her stranded. She was last seen entering the car of a Hispanic man in the downtown depot. Before her death, Mundy sent her mother a text message expressing fear that “this Mex” might hurt her. Ward, who is not Hispanic and did not own a car, was considered a suspect after his arrest for Long's death, but he was never charged with Mundy's murder.

One of the two murders he was convicted of, but denies committing, occurred on September 13, 2010. 46-year-old Carlos "Gypsy" Rodriguez, a transgender woman and hairdresser, was found dead in an apartment she shared with two men. Though she was found nude, there was no signs of sexual assault. One of Rodriguez's roommates reported that he had seen her engaged in consensual sex with a bald black man soon before she was found dead. Ward, who was not bald, admitted that he had met Rodriguez, whom he believed to be biologically female. He had agreed to watch her car while she went to clubs, and Rodriguez took a picture of Ward, which Ward himself later identified for the police. But Ward has consistently denied knowing anything about Rodriguez's death, which occurred in her apartment in North Houston.

The other murder he was convicted of occurred on September 30. Ward met with 52-year-old Reita Lafaye Long, a former teacher and friend of his who lived on the streets, who was sitting in front of the steps of the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart. According to later interviews, the pair got into a heated argument that turned violent, and Ward, then high on crack cocaine, strangled her with her own bra. Her body was discovered in the morning by a security guard. The night of his arrest on November 4, 20210, Ward confessed to police that he must have killed Ms. Long, claiming he had not intended to do so but had panicked when she “went off” on him.

The final suspected victim was 62-year-old Carol Elaine Flood, a homeless woman. She was found on the outside stairwell of a YMCA building in downtown Houston on October 10. Flood was found strangled to death with a scarf still around her neck and nude from the waist down with injuries to her face. During his trial, YSTR testing results showed Ward was among a quantity of African-American males who could not be excluded from one sample from the unstained portion of Flood's scarf. Ward was excluded from all other DNA testing that was undertaken. No other physical evidence connected him to the crime scene. Ward was briefly indicted for Flood's murder, but that indictment was dismissed. Yet evidence of Flood's murder was put before Ward's jury during the guilt-phase of his trial for the alleged murders of Rodriguez and Long.

Arrest, trial, and imprisonment
After Rodriguez's body was discovered, police attempted to identify people depicted in photos on Rodriguez's digital camera. One police officer recognized Lucky Ward as one of the men in the photos. After being approached by the police, on October 1, 2010, Ward saw a print out of the photo of him and identified himself. Ward then agreed to go to the police station to explain what he remembered about his picture being taken. In the police interview, Ward explained that he had offered to watch Rodriguez's car, in exchange for a tip, while she went into a club. Rodriguez took a photo of Ward standing next to her car. Ward speculated that she wanted a record in case something happened to her car. The police let Ward go after the interview.

Ward was arrested and brought to the police station for a custodial interview on November 4, 2010. After being told about Long's death, he confessed and explained that he had mental problems, had been off his medications, and was addicted to crack cocaine. He was then asked about Flood. He denied having anything to do with Flood's death. He was soon thereafter indicted with Long's murder and Rodriguez's murder as well. The evidence in the remaining killings was deemed too insufficient to hold up in court. District Attorney Kim Ogg eventually announced that she would seek the death penalty in his case, due to the severity of the crimes.

For nearly ten years, Ward's murder trial was delayed on numerous occasions. Among the reasons for the delay was the prosecution's requests for more time to test a vast quantity of items for DNA that had never been tested, although they had previously reported that DNA evidence had connected Ward to an array of murders. A trial date was also cancelled due to Hurricane Harvey. While awaiting trial, Ward had a severe mental breakdown and requested to represent himself. He was also written up by jail staff on multiple occasions. In 2018, a sheriff's spokesman labeled him one of the most dangerous and high-maintenance inmates to be detained in the county.

When the trial began, Ward suffered from a mental health crisis and was absent from most of the trial due to his breakdown. When given the option to testify on his behalf, he initially contemplated doing so, but ultimately decided to follow his lawyers’ recommendation not to testify.

During its deliberation, the jury sent two notes requesting exhibits referenced at trial. It is unclear if the court ever responded to the first note. The second note stated that the jury did not have the October 1, 2010, police interview related to the Rodriguez case and requested a copy. In response, the court told the jury that the requested exhibit was already in their possession. After five hours of deliberation, Ward was eventually found guilty for the murders of Rodriguez and Long. After several more days of testimony, during which the State focused on other murders they sought to attribute to Ward, he was summarily sentenced to death. He showed no reaction while the verdict was read out, but as he was escorted out of the courtroom, he turned towards one of Ms. Long's family members and said that he was sorry.

As of January 2024, Ward remains on death row at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit in West Livingston and is currently appealing his conviction and sentence since he denies that he committed the murders he was accused of. This direct appeal raises many issues about the constitutionality of his conviction and sentence, challenges his competency to stand trial and the insufficient evidence of guilt, attacks the prosecution's reliance on unadjudicated extraneous murders supported by very tenuous evidence that was not developed until years after his arrest, and argues that the trial proceeded unlawfully when he was absent from much of jury selection and the trial because of mental health breakdowns.