Johnnie Daniel, 84, was found dead in her Harris County home back in 2006, having been beaten to death. She was the great aunt of megachurch pastor Joel Osteen. Now, her murder is again being investigated, as DNA analysis brought the case back to square one.
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According to Chron, Daniel was found dead in her home back in August 2006. Her head had been smashed, and in her chest, a copy of the New Testament was found alongside a pencil. A claw hammer in a bloody towel was also found near her body.
“It’s sad someone would do that to an old, defenseless lady,” one neighbor said at the time, as per ABC 13.
For weeks, DNA evidence did not lead authorities to a suspect. However, one man, Edric Wilson, was arrested on an unrelated aggravated assault case after he stabbed a neighbor in September. After providing a DNA sample, it was matched to the DNA found at Daniel’s crime scene, under the victim’s fingernails. Wilson was charged with capital murder for the death of Johnnie Daniel.
What followed was 18 years of Wilson jumping from prisons to mental facilities while still awaiting trial. However, after his case was found by prosecutors in 2023, given the years he spent behind bars, the DNA sample from under Daniel’s fingernails was retested.
DNA Re-Tested
According to the Houston Chronicle, back in 2006, it was determined that the chance of the DNA belonging to anyone other than Wilson was 1 in 73.1 million. However, the 2023 retesting concluded that the chance of the DNA belonging to anyone other than Wilson dramatically changed. Now it was 1 in 15,830. It was determined to be an “accidental match.”
On August 30, 2024, Harris County prosecutors dismissed the capital murder charge against Wilson. After pleading guilty to the aggravated assault charge, Wilson was released on parole in 2025.
Months later, in June 2025, Johnnie Daniel’s murder is again under investigation.
“The Johnnie Daniel case from 2006 remains open and very much active. It is currently assigned to our Homicide Unit,” Senior Deputy Thomas Gilliland with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office said on Friday, June 6.
According to Chron, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office was unaware that Daniel’s case had been reopened. However, a DA’s Office spokesperson, Courtney Fischer, said that it wasn’t “untypical.”
“We trust and know HSCO investigators will thoroughly investigate and should new evidence come to light, they will present the reopened case to prosecutors,” Fischer added.