Joshua Pavey, a 30-year-old White man from Houston, Texas, was remembered as a "good guy with a big heart." He worked in RV sales at a local dealership called Holiday World. On December 19, 2020, his life was cut short after a night out that took a tragic turn.
That evening, a friend last saw Pavey at a Main Event entertainment center in Katy. According to court documents, Pavey had planned to meet a woman, but the arrangement fell through. He later met 24-year-old Kelly Slayton.
Surveillance video from Slayton's apartment complex in northwest Harris County captured Pavey and Slayton walking in and out of her apartment. The footage later showed Slayton moving Pavey's vehicle to a different parking spot. Pavey was never seen leaving the apartment again.
When Pavey failed to show up for work, his concerned family and friends filed a missing persons report two days later. In the meantime, a maintenance worker at Slayton's apartment building on Hammond Drive had reported a "foul odor" coming from her unit on December 19 while delivering a package. This report eventually led investigators to search the residence, where they discovered Joshua Pavey's body in the bedroom. He had been killed by a gunshot wound to the neck.
The day after Pavey was last seen, Slayton was arrested for an unrelated crime nearly 300 miles away in Comanche, Texas. Following a road rage incident in which she shot at another vehicle, Slayton fled from Texas state troopers, leading them on a chase that ended in a crash. During her arrest for aggravated assault, troopers realized the vehicle she was driving belonged to the missing Joshua Pavey. Back at her apartment complex, surveillance video showed Slayton making multiple trips from her apartment to the car, moving various items before she was seen leaving the property in Pavey's vehicle.
Based on the evidence gathered, including the discovery of Pavey's body in her apartment and her arrest in his car, Kelly Slayton was charged with murder. She was later tried by a jury for the killing of Joshua Pavey and was convicted of murder.
