STEVE JEFFER CARRINGTON | Aggravated Sexual Assault Of Child And Murder | Fort Bend Killer Gets 57 Years In Death Of Stepdaughter, 12-year-old Teketria Buggs | Lot of 2 ALS

Steve Carrington. Lot of 2: Handwritten ALS. Commercial #10 (4.125” x 9.5”) envelopes. Pmks: (1) March 21, 2007. Content unknown. Pristine; (2) April 13, 2007. Content unknown. Pristine.

Steve Carrington pleaded guilty to a murder charge of killing his 12-year-old step daughter Teketria Buggs and received a 57-year sentence.

Steve Carrington, 33, made the plea in the death of Teketria Buggs, 12.

Carrington also pleaded guilty in another murder case and a charge of sexual assault of a child.

Carrington became the main suspect the case shortly after his stepdaughter's disappearance. As detectives began following leads, investigators uncovered evidence about the unsolved disappearance of Carrington's cousin, Corey Brooks, 22. Police were able to link Carrington to Brooks' 1998 death and to the sexual assault of a young family member.

Carrington received a 40-year sentence in the death of Brooks and a 10-year sentence in the sexual assault case.

All the sentences will run concurrently.

Carrington faced a maximum penalty of life in prison on all three charges.

State law allows a person sentenced to life to become eligible for parole after serving 30 years. Carrington will become eligible to be considered for parole after serving half his 57-year sentence.

Prosecutors accepted the plea bargain after relatives of the victims agreed to the sentences.

Carrington was first arrested on a warrant unrelated to Teketria's case two days after the girl disappeared.

Detectives immediately became suspicious about Carrington because he had been the focus of the 1998 missing person probe involving Brooks, who had been last seen by relatives in June of that year.

Sheriff's detectives began receiving bits of information and tips about Brooks and on Dec. 16, one day after Teketria's body was pulled from the river, Carrington admitted shooting his cousin.

His body was never found. Carrington told police he and Brooks argued about money and that he shot and killed him and then dumped his body in the nearby river.ⁱ

Exactly one week later—on the day of Teketria's funeral—Carrington confessed he had killed the girl. An autopsy showed she had been beaten and stabbed to death.

In January 2006, a Fort Bend County grand jury indicted Carrington on a charge of murder in the death of Brooks. In August, he was indicted for murder in connection with the slaying of Teketria and for aggravated sexual assault in a case involving another young relative.

Seven hours after 12-year-old Teketria Buggs Friday funeral in Richmond, her stepfather, Steven Carrington, confessed to her murder.
It was Carrington’s second such confession in two weeks; on Dec. 16 he admitted to the 1998 killing of Corey Brooks.

Brooks, 21 at the time of his death, lived on Johnson Road about a mile east of Orchard the same property where Teketria Buggs lived, and where she was last seen alive Dec. 2.

At a press conference at the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office on Saturday, Chief Deputy Craig Brady discussed details of Carrington’s most recent confession.

Carrington, 31, told investigators on Friday that he'd been smoking crack cocaine on the night of Dec. 2 and was in a utility room at one end of the house he shared with Teketria Buggs, her mother and other relatives.

According to Brady, Carrington told detectives the Buggs girl approached him, but he was hallucinating and thought it was Brooks, whom he'd already admitted to killing. Carrington confessed to hitting the girl in the head and knocking her down. At that point, he told investigators, he could see that he'd just hit Teketria. But she got back up and, he said, he again believed it was Brooks. He hit the girl in the head again and stabbed her.

Then, he told investigators, he put her body in a car, drove to the same nearby bridge over the Brazos River where he admitted disposing of Brooks body seven years ago, and threw Teketria Buggs into the water.

Brady called Carrington cold and calculating, and termed his statements about the hallucinations self-serving. Brady said information gathered in the case has led him to believe Carrington sexually assaulted the girl.

Investigators don't have evidence necessary to prove that belief, Brady said. However, the medical examiners office said a preliminary autopsy shows the young girl had been sexually active for some time.

If we can show sexual assault was involved, then we can upgrade the charges to capital murder, Brady said.

Carrington will face first-degree murder charges in his stepdaughter's death, and already has been charged with first-degree murder in Corey Brooks death. He is in the county jail on $500,000 bond.

The confession was extracted after several days of questioning by sheriff's detectives and the Texas Rangers, Brady said. Finally, on the day of the young girls funeral at Pilgrim Journey Baptist Church, just a few hundred yards east of the county jail, what little bit of a conscience (Carrington) evidently does have got to him and he admitted to the murder, Brady said.

He kept talking about not wanting to be known as a child killer, Brady said of Carrington. And he kept referring to (Teketria) as his baby.

Investigators went back to the Johnson Road property after the confession and have been acting on information Carrington provided, Brady said. A burn pile behind Carrington’s house is being examined because detectives believe a blunt object used in the killing may have been tossed in the pile. Investigators also believe Teketria Buggs shoes and clothing, and Carrington’s shoes were put in the pile to burn.

Brady said Carrington’s family is not cooperating with investigators.

A lack of cooperation by potential witnesses was cited as preventing the Corey Brooks case from being solved for years.

According to an affidavit, Carrington told investigators he shot Brooks and wrapped him in blankets on a stormy night in 1998. Then, with the help of another man identified as Janus Parker, Carrington put Brooks body into the trunk of a car. The two men drove to a bridge on F.M. 1489 over the flooded river and threw Brooks body into the torrent below.

On Saturday, Brady said no charges have been filed against Parker or anyone else besides Carrington in either killing, but there's a possibility others may be charged in the Brooks case.

Sheriff's investigators arrested Carrington Dec. 5, while the search for his missing stepdaughter got under way, on unrelated charges of failure to appear in court. He has been in the county jail since, but now is being held on murder charges.

The Orchard girls body was discovered in the river at about 1pm Dec. 15 by a four-person Texas EquuSearch team and a cadaver dog, specially trained to detect human remains. The dog and team members were in a boat in the river.

Texas EquuSearch is a non-profit Dickinson-based search-and-rescue organization that specializes in searching for missing people.

State, county and city law enforcement officers and volunteers had conducted an intensive search beginning Dec. 4 for the girl, at first concentrating on the 12-acre property and outbuildings around the girls home. Then searchers progressively expanded the search and included the nearby Brazos River.

If some of the individuals that withheld information in the Corey Brooks case would have come forward seven years ago, Brady said, the little girl would've been alive today.ⁱⁱ

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