Tammy Dawson, a 25-year-old female from Beaumont, Texas, was fatally shot in the head during the early morning hours of Saturday, June 6, 2026, inside her west Beaumont home on Heartfield Lane, near Gladys Avenue and Major Drive. Police were called to the 8200 block of Heartfield Lane at about 2:40 a.m. after her boyfriend, Brandon Chretien, called 911 and reported that Dawson had been shot during what he described as a struggle over a gun.
When Beaumont police arrived, they found Dawson
in a bedroom closet with a gunshot wound to the head. A handgun was found on a bedside table. Beaumont EMS rushed her to a local hospital, where she remained in critical condition with a traumatic brain injury. Investigators later said the evidence and information gathered at the scene indicated the wound was not self-inflicted and that Dawson had been shot by Chretien.
Dawson was kept on life support until late Monday morning, June 8, 2026. Her family, including her 4-year-old son, gathered at the hospital before doctors removed her from life support. A close friend told local media that Dawson was an organ donor and that eight of her organs were donated after her death. She was remembered as someone who worked at a daycare center and as a mother whose young son had to say goodbye to her at the hospital.
Chretien, initially reported as 44 and later as 45, was taken into custody at the scene. He was first charged with aggravated assault with a weapon causing brain injury or paralysis, a first-degree felony. A magistrate set his bond at $1 million and imposed conditions including no contact with the victim, GPS monitoring, and no possession of a firearm. After Dawson died, prosecutors upgraded the charge to murder.
The case was described by police and local reports as a domestic violence-related shooting involving Dawson and Chretien, who were identified as being in a dating relationship, with later reports referring to Dawson as his estranged girlfriend. The District Attorney's Office was expected to take the upgraded murder case to a grand jury, and Chretien remained jailed on the $1 million bond after the murder charge was filed.
