Baytown man indicted in ex-wife’s death

The Baytown man accused of strangling his exwife was indicted Thursday by a Chambers County grand jury, the next step in a gruesome case hit with setbacks at every turn.

First there was the hurricane. Then the slew of suspects to eliminate. Then, finally, a cadre of family members so eager to help that the district attorney had to call them in for a grand jury inquiry after they may have meddled with the investigation into Crystal McDowell’s death, according to Sheriff Brian Hawthorne.

“It all wrapped around the private investigator that the family had hired,” Hawthorne said. No one from the family was indicted, though some were subpoenaed to answer questions, he added.

The 37-year-old Baytown Realtor vanished on the eve of Hurricane Harvey after telling her boyfriend she was headed to her exhusband’s house to pick up their children.

But Steven McDowell said she never arrived, kicking off a two-week search for the missing mom.

After days of combing the county for the former stewardess’s remains, her 44-year-old ex-husband was arrested following a tearful confession, authorities said at the time.

Afterward, he led investigators to his wife’s decomposing body.

The day before McDowell’s confession and arrest, the Department of Family and Protective Services preemptively removed the couple’s young children from the home.

Meanwhile, McDowell is held in the Chambers County jail on $500,000 bail.

On Thursday, grand jurors returned an indictment for “intent to cause serious bodily injury” and “commit an act clearly dangerous to human life,” according to court documents.

McDowell’s lawyer did not respond Monday to a request for comment.