Homer Breck “Butch” King, male, age 27, was killed on August 15, 1987, inside the couple's home in the 6600 block of Dinner Creek Drive in northwest Harris County. He and his wife, Joanna King, also 27, were shot at close range; investigators later noted both victims had been shot in the back of the head, contradicting any claim of self-defense.
King was laid to rest at Magnolia Cemetery in Onalaska, Polk County, tying him and Joanna to family ground even as the violence that ended their lives was rooted in Houston's drug trade of the late eighties.
For years the case drifted without resolution, a cold file that seemed destined to gather dust until two detectives in the Harris County Sheriff's Office “cold case squad,” Roger Wedgeworth and Harry Fikaris, revived it. Re-interviewing original witnesses, they uncovered a new one: a young woman who, at six years old in 1987, said she had accompanied her mother and a man named Gerald McKnight to the Kings' home and stood outside as the drug-related shooting unfolded. That account, together with other re-examined evidence, moved the investigation forward after more than a decade.
In May 2000, 65-year-old Gerald McKnight pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and received two consecutive life sentences. He had been located in a federal prison in West Virginia, where he was serving a 22-year term on drug charges. McKnight told investigators he went to the house for drugs and shot the couple in self-defense, but prosecutors said the physical evidence flatly contradicted that story. Indicted in March 2000 and initially facing capital charges, he avoided the death penalty by accepting the “stacked” life terms; under the deal, he would complete his federal sentence before beginning his time in Texas and would not be eligible for parole until serving 30 years on the murder convictions. With that plea, the long-unsolved killings of Homer and Joanna King were formally closed and the shooter was held accountable in court.
