Police: Austin man killed woman in her apartment after 2 dates
06/30/2021 5:33 pm PDT
AUSTIN, Texas (TCD) --
Police arrested a man suspected of shooting and killing a college senior he met and with whom he went on two dates.
The victim, Natalia Monet Cox, was killed in the early morning of March 31. The Austin Police Department released a statement at the time describing how someone called 9-1-1 after hearing "what sounded like a door being kicked in," as well as "several gunshots, a woman screaming and hearing someone running, followed by a car leaving in a hurry."
When officers arrived, they found the front door to the apartment looked like it had been forcibly opened. Officers "began to administer lifesaving measures until Austin-Travis County EMS arrived," but Cox was pronounced dead at 3:04 a.m., the statement said.
According to KXAN-TV, the shooting occurred at the Colonial Grand at Canyon Pointe Apartments. The coroner reportedly determined her cause of death was homicide by gunshot wounds.
Officers recently found the suspect Henry Watson and charged him with first-degree murder. They reportedly discovered him sleeping in his car at a Round Rock parking lot. It was reportedly the same car that was seen on surveillance footage leaving Cox's apartment at the time of the shooting.
KXAN reports Watson and Cox met not long before her death. A week before the shooting, police reportedly responded to a "terroristic threat" with Cox and Watson. She allegedly told cops she had met Watson three days prior and went on two dates with him.
Cox was a senior at Huston-Tillotson University studying biology. The university released a tribute to her, saying she had hopes of becoming an exotic animal veterinarian.
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