Attorney Says He Killed Son by Mistake, Burned Body

A Texas attorney has been charged with murder and tampering with evidence after telling police that he killed his son in a "horrible accident" and cremated his body. Investigators say Houston attorney Michael Howard, 68, told police on Monday that he shot his 20-year-old son Mark at the family's east Texas lake house Sunday night after mistaking him for an intruder, KTRK reports. Investigators say Howard didn't call police until 17 hours after the shooting. The Sabine County Sheriff's Office says Howard burned his son's body on a site on the large property around a mile and a half from the house, KTRE reports. He also allegedly used a hose to wash the scene of the shooting.

Investigators say Howard placed his son's body in the front-loading bucket of a backhoe tractor to carry it to a woodpile. He told police that he burned the body because he believed it was what his son would have wanted, the Houston Chronicle reports. Charred remains including a lower jawbone were recovered from the woodpile and sent for testing. Sabine County Sheriff's Office Deputy JP MacDonough said Thursday that Mark Howard, the eldest of Howard's two children, had been diagnosed with Down syndrome but was "high-functioning" and had a job. He said Howard and his son were the only people at the property.

"It is a bizarre crime anywhere you are just because of the nature of the event," MacDonough said, per the AP. "Mr. Howard committed this act and in the furtherance of that, burned the body and cleaned the crime scene, which as an investigator, I would take as indicative of nefarious purposes." Two days before the shooting, Howard called police to report the theft of property including a tractor. MacDonough declined to say whether the theft could have contributed to Howard allegedly believing his son was an intruder. In court documents, investigators said Mark Howard rarely left his father's side, the Chronicle reports. (More Texas stories.)