A Texas man who was exonerated for a 2010 stabbing outside a bar after serving over seven years in prison is now accused of shooting another man dead during a road rage incident.
Houston police say Lydell Grant, 46, and an unidentified woman were leaving a corner store on Thursday at around 11.50pm when he ran a stop sign, causing a Toyota to hit him.
Grant then allegedly got out of the car and fired multiple shots through the windshield of the Toyota, before getting back in his car and driving off.
The driver of the Toyota, 33-year-old Edwin Arevalo, was pronounced dead at the scene, and Grant is now being held on a $1million bond as he faces murder charges.
The suspect had previously been released from prison in 2019 for the murder of 28-year-old Aaron Scheerhoon, for which he was ultimately found innocent.
Lydell Grant, 46, has been arrested for allegedly shooting a man in a road rage incident in southwest Houston Thursday night
Authorities say Grant ran a stop sign, causing a Toyota to hit him. He then allegedly got out of the car and fired shots at the Toyota, killing 33-year-old Edwin Arevalo
Authorities are pictured at the scene of the shooting near the intersection of Hiram Clarke Road and Brentwood Park Drive
Grant was convicted in 2012 of stabbing Scheerhoorn outside a Montrose bar after six eyewitnesses to the stabbing two years earlier positively identified him as the attacker and testified against him in court.
Police said Scheerhoorn was turned away from the club and witnesses at the time told investigators they saw Grant stab him several more times before fleeing. Grant was convicted in 2012.
But he was released from prison in 2019, nearly eight years into his life sentence, after the Innocence Project of Texas analyzed DNA evidence found on the victim’s fingernails — that did not point to Grant as the perpetrator.
Police then arrested Jermaico Carter for Scheerhoorn’s killing, tracking him down in Atlanta, Georgia, where he confessed to the murder.
‘The highest responsibility of a prosecutor is to see that justice is done and insuring that we have the correct individual charged is a baseline responsibility,’ Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a statement at the time.
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Grant’s attorney, Mike Ware, who also serves as the executive director of the Innocence Project also said: ‘We are relieved that Lydell’s wrongful conviction has had this important breakthrough.’
Grant was ultimately declared innocent in May 2021 by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, while Carter pleaded guilty to the murder of Scheerhorn last year.
Grant was freed on bond in 2019 after a new analysis of DNA found on the victim’s fingernails pointed to his innocence in the killing of 28-year-old Aaron Scheerhoorn
Grant (center), his mother Donna Poe (second from left) and his brother Alonzo Poe (right) celebrated after he was released in 2019
Jermarico Carter (left) later confessed to killing Aaron Scheerhoorn (right)
But investigators now say surveillance footage from the crash near the intersection of Hiram Clarke Road and Brentwood Park Drive helped them identify Grant as the suspect in the shooting, and he was arrested on Friday.
His defense is now arguing that Grant has been running his own home cleaning business for the last six months and is helping to support his mother.
The last time there were any charges on his criminal record, they argued in court, was in 2009.
A spokesperson for the Innocence Project of Texas, meanwhile, told ABC 13 in a statement: ‘We are saddened by the news of this tragic event and our thoughts and sympathies go out to the victim’s family.
‘As this is an ongoing investigtion, we cannot comment on the specifics of this incident,’ the spokesperson added.
But, he noted: ‘We stand behind Mr. Grant’s previous exoneration, which was granted by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.’
