Suspect receives life sentence for stabbing death of man in west Houston restroom in 2013

HOUSTON – A man who stabbed another man to death while he was sitting on the toilet of a west Houston apartment has pleaded guilty.

Raymond Lincoln was sentenced to life in prison by a Harris County judge on Wednesday for the stabbing death of Erick Shears.

Shears was found dead in his Fountainview Drive apartment in January 2013 with multiple stab wounds.

The case remained unsolved for ten years until DNA evidence linked Lincoln to the crime. He was indicted in April 2023.

Shears told his family that he was bisexual and that his uncle, Curtis Anderson, knew about the interference in his life of the man accused of his murder.

“After what he told me about this guy and his meeting with this guy, I told him I wouldn’t mess with a guy like that,” Anderson said in 2023. “He told me about this guy and is already telling me the guy was trying to boss him around.”

After his family had not heard from Shears for several days, Anderson went to his West Houston apartment on Fountainview Drive and made the gruesome discovery.

“When the door flew open, I looked down and saw blood on the floor,” Anderson said. “He was lying across the tub. First I saw his feet. I (thought) he had fallen off the toilet.”

Shears was in an early stage of decomposition and was found dead in his own home, but no one was held accountable.

That was the case until 2023, when homicide detectives from the Houston Police Department reviewed the case and found DNA evidence linking Lincoln to the murder.

In addition to messages found between the men suggesting a relationship, Lincoln may have lived with Shears for a time, according to a source familiar with the investigation. Lincoln allegedly claimed he made unwanted sexual advances that led to a fight and an altercation over a knife.

The circumstances of the 2013 murder, according to the source, closely resemble those of a 1992 murder for which Lincoln was convicted. The victim in that case was also a man, and Lincoln also claimed he made unwanted sexual advances.

While Lincoln was in jail on unrelated aggravated assault charges, Houston police said in a news release that homicide detectives questioned him about Shears’ death and he allegedly admitted his involvement.