Edward Lewis Lagrone: Murders, Convictions, and Execution
Early Life and First Murder
Edward Lewis Lagrone was born on March 3, 1957, in Fort Worth, Texas. He grew up in the southeastern part of the city and left school after the tenth grade. Before reaching the age of twenty, Lagrone had already committed the first murder for which he would be convicted.
On October 3, 1976, Lagrone became involved in an argument with Michael Anthony Jones outside the Lucky Lady Lounge in Fort Worth. The confrontation developed into a physical fight. During the struggle, Lagrone produced a .38-caliber revolver and shot Jones in the head. He then continued firing into Jones’s body. Lagrone was arrested and charged with murder, although he maintained that he was innocent.
Lagrone waived his right to a jury trial and was convicted of killing Jones. He received a twenty-year prison sentence but served approximately seven years before being released in 1984. His relatively early release allowed him to return to the Fort Worth area years before he carried out the triple murder that ultimately placed him on death row.
Relationship with the Lloyd Family
After leaving prison, Lagrone became involved with Pamela Lloyd, a Fort Worth mother who lived with her children and several relatives. Their romantic relationship lasted for about six months during 1985. Although the relationship ended, Lagrone continued visiting the family and remained familiar with the children in the household.
In May 1991, Pamela noticed physical changes in her ten-year-old daughter, Shakeisha Lloyd, and took her to a hospital for an examination. Medical personnel discovered that Shakeisha was approximately seventeen weeks pregnant. The child identified Lagrone as the person who had sexually assaulted and impregnated her. Pamela reported the allegations to police and confronted Lagrone by telephone.
Lagrone initially denied having sexual contact with Shakeisha. According to testimony presented during his capital-murder trial, he later called Pamela back, apologized for what he had done and offered to provide financial support for the baby. Pamela told him that she intended to pursue criminal charges. Lagrone also offered money toward an abortion and attempted to persuade Pamela to abandon the complaint.
Preparation for the Fort Worth Attack
On May 29, 1991, the day before the murders, Lagrone arranged for a female acquaintance to purchase a shotgun for him. As a convicted felon, he was legally prohibited from buying the firearm himself. He provided the money and accompanied the woman to a Fort Worth gun store, where she purchased a slide-action shotgun with a pistol-style grip. The weapon was placed in the trunk of Lagrone’s vehicle.
In the early morning hours of May 30, Lagrone went to the Lloyd family residence on East Rosedale Street in Fort Worth. The home was occupied by Pamela, her children, her uncle Dempsey Lloyd and two elderly relatives, Zenobia Anderson and Caola Lloyd. Caola was blind, seriously ill with cancer and confined to bed.
The May 30, 1991 Triple Murder
At approximately 4:00 to 5:00 a.m., Lagrone entered the residence carrying the shotgun. Dempsey Lloyd confronted him and was shot in the arms. Although badly injured, Dempsey struggled with Lagrone and begged him not to kill the family.
Lagrone moved through the residence, firing into different rooms. He entered the bedroom where Caola Lloyd was resting and shot her in the front of the neck. Medical evidence showed that she raised her hand in a defensive gesture before the blast struck her. The gunfire caused a devastating neck wound and severed part of one of her fingers.
Zenobia Anderson was in another area of the home when she was shot in the back of the neck. The elderly woman died from the shotgun wound. The attack gave the occupants little opportunity to understand what was happening or to escape from the confined residence.
Shakeisha attempted to help protect the younger children as her mother tried to hide them. She was reportedly concealing her nineteen-month-old sister behind boxes and warning her mother to hide when Lagrone found her. He fired a shotgun into the ten-year-old child’s face. The blast entered her left cheek and traveled through her jaw and neck area. She also suffered a severe defensive injury to her hand.
Shakeisha died along with her unborn child. Subsequent testing established that Lagrone could not be excluded as the fetus’s biological father and that the probability of another unrelated man being the father was extraordinarily small. The DNA evidence strongly supported the prosecution’s allegation that Lagrone had repeatedly assaulted and impregnated the child.
Before leaving, Lagrone shot Dempsey Lloyd a second time. Despite his wounds, Dempsey survived and managed to reach a neighboring residence to call emergency services. Pamela Lloyd and the remaining children also survived the attack. Witness identifications, the firearm purchase, physical evidence and DNA findings became central parts of the case against Lagrone.
Confirmed Victims
- Michael Anthony Jones — Killed on October 3, 1976, outside the Lucky Lady Lounge in Fort Worth, Texas. Jones was shot repeatedly with a .38-caliber revolver following an argument and fight. Lagrone was convicted of the murder and sentenced to twenty years in prison.
- Shakeisha Lloyd — Killed on May 30, 1991, at her family’s residence on East Rosedale Street in Fort Worth, Texas. The ten-year-old was approximately seventeen weeks pregnant after being sexually assaulted by Lagrone. She was fatally shot in the face with a shotgun.
- Zenobia Anderson — Killed on May 30, 1991, inside the Lloyd family residence in Fort Worth, Texas. The eighty-three-year-old woman was shot in the back of the neck with a shotgun.
- Caola Lloyd — Killed on May 30, 1991, inside the Lloyd family residence in Fort Worth, Texas. The seventy-six-year-old woman was blind, bedridden and suffering from cancer. She was shot through the front of the neck while attempting to protect herself.
Possible Additional Victims
Investigators also examined Lagrone as a possible suspect in the deaths of Clifton Demerson and Mary Demerson Daniel. The two were shot to death in a Fort Worth apartment on December 29, 1990. Lagrone had reportedly dated Daniel’s daughter, and allegations existed that he had abused a member of the family.
The circumstances led authorities to consider whether the double murder might have been connected to Lagrone. However, investigators did not develop enough evidence to charge him with either death. Clifton Demerson and Mary Demerson Daniel therefore remain suspected rather than legally confirmed victims of Lagrone.
- Clifton Demerson — Found shot to death on December 29, 1990, at an apartment in Fort Worth, Texas. Lagrone was investigated but was never charged.
- Mary Demerson Daniel — Found shot to death with Clifton Demerson on December 29, 1990, in Fort Worth, Texas. Lagrone was considered a possible suspect but was never prosecuted for her murder.
Arrest and Capital-Murder Trial
Lagrone was arrested shortly after the Lloyd family murders. Police located him at his girlfriend’s apartment in Arlington, Texas. He denied responsibility for the shootings and disputed the accusation that he had impregnated Shakeisha. His defense later attempted to shift responsibility toward other possible participants, but surviving witnesses identified Lagrone as the gunman.
Prosecutors argued that Lagrone committed the murders to prevent Pamela Lloyd and her daughter from pursuing the sexual-assault case. They presented evidence concerning his attempts to persuade Pamela to drop the complaint, his acquisition of the shotgun immediately before the killings, eyewitness testimony from survivors and forensic findings from the victims’ autopsies.
DNA testing of the fetus was especially damaging to Lagrone’s defense. Multiple genetic tests failed to exclude him as the father, while virtually all other unrelated men were excluded. The evidence provided a direct motive for silencing Shakeisha and members of her family before the allegations could result in another lengthy prison sentence.
In May 1993, a Tarrant County jury convicted Lagrone of three counts of capital murder for killing more than one person during the same criminal transaction. The jury sentenced him to death. His conviction and sentence were reviewed through years of state and federal appeals, but the courts declined to overturn the judgment.
Execution and Final Statement
Edward Lewis Lagrone remained on Texas death row for more than a decade. He continued to claim that he had not committed the Lloyd family murders, although he acknowledged that he did not consider himself morally superior to whoever had carried them out.
Lagrone was executed by lethal injection at the Huntsville Unit in Huntsville, Texas, on February 11, 2004. He was forty-six years old. In his final statement, he said that he was neither sad nor bitter and again denied killing the three victims. He was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m.
Legacy of the Case
Lagrone’s known crimes extended across nearly fifteen years, beginning with the 1976 murder of Michael Anthony Jones and ending with the 1991 massacre of three members of the Lloyd family. His release after serving only a portion of his first murder sentence became a disturbing element of the case, since he returned to society and later committed a far more extensive act of violence.
The Lloyd family murders were particularly shocking because of the vulnerability of the victims. Shakeisha Lloyd was a ten-year-old child who had been sexually abused and impregnated, while Zenobia Anderson and Caola Lloyd were elderly women with little ability to defend themselves. The attack also endangered several other children and left Dempsey Lloyd seriously wounded.
Although Lagrone was convicted of four murders, the unresolved deaths of Clifton Demerson and Mary Demerson Daniel created the possibility that his total number of victims was higher. He was never charged in that double homicide, and it should not be treated as proven. His confirmed record nevertheless established him as a repeat murderer whose violence escalated from a fatal confrontation outside a lounge to a planned attack intended to eliminate witnesses to the sexual abuse of a child.
