Stephanie Easter, 58, was found late Sunday morning, May 25, 2025, inside a home on the 100 block of Ridge Oak Drive in Red Oak, Texas. Deputies with the Ellis County Sheriff's Office were dispatched around 12:05 p.m. and discovered the Red Oak woman with an apparent gunshot wound; she was pronounced dead at the scene. Investigators opened a homicide inquiry as the quiet street filled with squad cars and crime-scene tape, and neighbors watched as detectives documented the single-story residence where the 58-year-old mother's life ended.
By the following day, authorities said evidence from the scene led them to a single suspect: Stephanie Easter's 20-year-old biological son, Dwight Xavier Jones Jr. He was taken into custody without incident and booked into the Wayne McCollum Detention Center, facing a murder charge in connection with the shooting death of his mother, Stephanie Easter, 58. Officials did not immediately release a possible motive, but emphasized that the investigation remained active.
News of the killing moved quickly through local and regional outlets that identified the victim as Stephanie Easter, 58, of Red Oak, and reiterated that the case centered on a domestic shooting inside the family's home. Records and community memorial pages marked the date of death as May 25, 2025, aligning with the sheriff's timeline of the Sunday callout and on-scene pronouncement. As of the initial reports, no other suspects were sought, and the case focused on the single arrest of the victim's son.
