Man who coached 16-year-old boy on how to commit armed robbery now charged with murder after teen dies in botched attempt

Larry Holmes coached a 16-year-old to commit an armed robbery at this apartment building in Houston, Texas, but the targeted victims killed the boy, authorities said. (Screenshot: KTRK)

An 18-year-old man is being charged with murder for allegedly coaching a 16-year-old who died in a botched armed robbery. The defendant, Larry Holmes, told the slain boy, named under the initials E.Q., to point a gun at two people, according to court documents out of Harris County, Texas.

The Dec. 12, 2023, robbery attempt ended in the younger teenager’s death, authorities said.

From the complaint against Holmes.

LARRY HOLMES, hereafter styled the Defendant, heretofore on or about December 12, 2023, did then and there unlawfully, intentionally and knowingly commit or attempt to commit an act clearly dangerous to human life, namely coaching sixteen-year-old E.Q. how to commit an aggravated robbery and instructing E.Q. to point a firearm at two people and rob them, that caused the death of E.Q., hereinafter the complainant, and the Defendant was then and there in the course of intentionally and knowingly committing a felony, namely the aggravated robbery of [the robbery victim], and the death of the complainant was caused while the Defendant was in the course of and in the furtherance of the commission or attempted commission of the aggravated robbery of [the robbery victim].

Bond documents in the case show that the attempted robbery happened in an elevator. The two men killed E.Q., documents said.

“All I heard was like three loud bangs,” Obi, a student from the University of Houston, told Houston Fox affiliate KRIV in a Dec. 13 report. “They were gunshots.”