On September 6, 2024, 25-year-old Kiara Allani Smith was found dead in her home on Green Earth Drive in Corpus Christi, Texas. Roommates reported hearing gunfire around 3:20 a.m. and discovered Smith with a fatal gunshot wound; police were called and opened an investigation.

The primary suspect is Smith’s 22-year-old boyfriend, Devaughan Marquise Williams, who turned himself in to the Nueces County Jail the same day and is being held without bond on a murder charge. Williams had a documented history of violence against Smith: a June 2023 arrest for assault while she was pregnant led to a guilty plea in February 2024 and six years of deferred adjudication with anger management, parenting classes, and a curfew. In November 2023 he pleaded guilty to aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for an incident involving his sister and received concurrent deferred adjudication.

The judge who handled Williams’s prior cases, Nanette Hasette, recused from the current proceedings and the matter was reassigned to Judge Susan Barclay. What details about the nights before September 6 might help explain how this fatal attack occurred?