Joseph Stewart, the 54-year-old owner of Stewart Cadillac in Houston, was shot and killed outside his residence on May 7, 2015. He was found near his garage late at night, lying close to his 2013 Cadillac Escalade, just moments after pulling into his driveway. Witnesses reported hearing gunfire, and a neighbor saw someone running from the scene soon afterward.
Authorities discovered that, only weeks before his death, Stewart had narrowly escaped a similar violent encounter involving three men who attempted to rob him as he returned home. Although the suspects in the earlier incident left without injuring him, police began investigating whether this attempted robbery might have been related to his eventual murder.
Stewart’s killing came as a shock to his community and colleagues, as he was well-known and respected in Houston's business scene. Originally from Detroit, he had come to Houston in the early 2000s and had built his Cadillac dealership into a thriving business, recognized for his personal connections with customers and his dedicated work ethic. His employees and friends mourned the loss, remembering him for his humor, warmth, and passion for both his work and his Detroit Lions. Following his death, police searched for a masked male suspect seen on neighborhood surveillance cameras but have not made any definitive arrests directly related to his murder.
In 2016, during an FBI investigation into an unrelated series of armored car robberies, it was revealed in court that one of the suspects in those heists, Redrick Batiste, was also linked to Stewart’s homicide. However, as of the last reports, no formal charges in connection to Stewart’s death have been made public, leaving unresolved questions in this complex case.
