HARRIS COUNTY, Texas – A Katy man has been sentenced to life in prison for shooting and killing his wife and wounding two of his stepchildren in 2021.
Lawrence Reed, 56, was convicted by a jury of murder and sentenced to life for fatally shooting 36-year-old Valarie Junius at their house on July 29, 2021.
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“This man went on a shooting rampage in his own home, shooting three people that he claimed he loved,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said. “An abuser can hurt, maim and kill anyone caught in their path. Cases like this are why we have a Domestic Violence Division, and innocent victims like this are why we work so hard to get justice.”
Reed was also convicted of two counts of aggravated assault of a family member for shooting the two stepchildren. He was sentenced to the maximum punishment of 20 years each for those two cases. All three prison sentences will run concurrently.
Reed and his wife had a blended family with a total of six children. The couple had two kids together, ages 8 and 4. Reed was also stepfather to her four other children, who were 12, 16, 17 and 20.
The 20-year-old daughter had a 1-year-old baby, and they were both in the house during the shooting.
The district attorney’s office said weeks before Reed opened fire on his family, his wife and children went on a trip to Chicago. While Reed was home alone, he began texting strange messages and mentioned a gun. When they returned from the trip, the family searched the house, found a .40-caliber handgun and snuck it out of the house.
The couple had been having marital problems, and on the day he killed her, Reed had written a long message to his wife in a card about how much he loved her. Although they were both in the same house, he was texting her that day to come upstairs to where he was so that she could read the card in front of him.
She was downstairs visiting with her children and grandchild and repeatedly texted back that she did not want to come up.
On the day of the shooting, Reed said goodbye to his two children, the 8-year-old and 4-year-old, who were upstairs with him, before going downstairs to confront Junius.
The family was unaware that Reed had another pistol and after speaking to them briefly, Reed pulled the pistol out of his pocket and shot his 20-year-old stepdaughter in the chest. That bullet hit her in the heart, both lungs and the liver, but she ultimately survived.
The initial shot caused a panic and Reed’s wife ran out the back door. Several children ran out the front door. Reed shot several more times in the house, wounding his wife, but she was able to continue to run away. Reed followed her out of the house.
He saw her hiding near a neighbor’s car with her 16-year-old son. Reed shot the teen two times; he also survived. The teen was holding his mother’s arm when Reed fatally shot her, according to the district attorney’s office.
At that point, all of the children, except the 20-year-old daughter, were out of the house and running. Neighbors came outside and began calling 911 and trying to help Reed’s wife and children.
One neighbor tried to perform CPR to save Reed’s wife, but Reed came over with the gun, kicked the dead woman in the head and told the neighbor that she was dead. One of her teen sons was also trying to help his mom, and Reed pointed the gun at him and told him to run away or face being shot as well.
Reed then went back inside. When deputies with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office arrived, Reed barricaded himself in the house, saying that if anyone came in, he would shoot them.
The 20-year-old, who had been shot in the chest, was able to get up during the chaos and hid in a closet with her baby. While hiding, she was able to call 911. She was on the phone with them for 49 minutes before officers were able to sneak her and her child out of the house without being detected by Reed. She was transported to the hospital where she underwent emergency surgery for her injuries.
During Reed’s trial, jurors heard about the life-saving measures that first responders took and the complicated surgeries medical personnel had to perform to save her. Witnesses testified that it was a miracle that the young mother did not die.
Assistant District Attorney Kelly Marshall, who is assigned to the Domestic Violence Division, prosecuted the case with Elizabeth Liberman, who is assigned to the Homicide Division of the DA’s Office.
“He had absolutely murderous intent to kill everyone in that house and would have tried if they hadn’t gotten the other gun out of there—he simply ran out of bullets,” Marshall said. “This case shows how fatal domestic violence can be—there’s no reason to shoot up a house full of unarmed women and children.”
She noted that the kids behaved heroically during the shooting and the first responders were also heroes who worked to save lives.