Houston and Texas Crime

Houston police say 36-year-old Marietta Allison of Austin was shot and killed on the night of March 7, 2026, in what authorities describe as an alleged carjacking after she dropped her friend, stage 4 ovarian cancer patient Cassie Daniel, and Daniel’s father at a friend’s apartment following chemotherapy. When Allison drove off to find parking, witnesses heard a scream and a gunshot; Daniel later found her friend lying on the sidewalk as paramedics tried to save her, and Allison was pronounced dead at a hospital from a gunshot that passed through her neck and head. Police quickly discovered the car was missing and located 18-year-old Darius DeWayne Hall driving the stolen vehicle, triggering a high-speed chase along Houston’s Southwest Freeway that ended in a crash and an hours-long armed standoff in a nearby residential complex before Hall’s arrest around 7 a.m. the next morning. Hall has been charged with capital murder in Allison’s killing, while friends and family are publicly mourning a woman described as a devoted caregiver who traveled from Austin to accompany Daniel to treatment, adding another high-profile case to public concern over violent street crime in Houston.