Officials: Woman killed fleeing pimp
Dejia Baxton was apparently frightened of her suspected pimp so much that she ran from him and was fatally hit by a car near the Galleria.
Deandros Finks, who initially told police that a rideshare service was involved in Baxton’s death, is now charged with murder and promotion of prostitution.
Baxton narrowly missed being hit by one car around 3 a.m. Sunday as she bolted across a feeder road along the 2700 block of West Loop South, according to surveillance footage of the incident. A man was seen chasing her.
The 23-year-old woman was waving her arms, as if “to be looking for assistance” when a car hit her in the northbound lane of the highway.
“You feel so bad for her in that the only way she thought she could escape him was by running across 14 lanes of fast-moving traffic,” said Sean Teare, head of the Harris County District Attorney’s Office Vehicular Crimes Division. “It’s likely that she’s not the only woman in the same situation with him.”
Court records show Finks repeatedly changed his narrative of what happened that night and investigators doubted him after reviewing security footage from a nearby business. In the immediate aftermath, Finks, 29, told police at the crash site that Baxton was his girlfriend of three months.
Baxton was heading back to their lodging after a night of drinking, but a ride-share driver dropped her on the “wrong side of the freeway,” he said. He went looking for her as she tried crossing the highway but heard the collision while talking to her on the phone. That vehicle fled the scene, Finks said.
The driver of the SUV that hit Baxton exited the highway but returned and was questioned by police, who then released him, authorities said.
Police initially called the crash “mind boggling” when asked why Baxton failed to use an underpass to cross the roadway.
Finks later told police Baxton was a prostitute on her way back from seeing a customer.
Surveillance footage showed Baxton and Finks having an argument in a parking lot prior to the crash.
“Suddenly and unexpectedly, (Baxton) begins running at full speed toward the service road where she is almost struck by (a car) passing by,” according to a sworn statement that describes the footage. The same video was played for Finks on Tuesday and he then told investigators that he lied about what happened.
He claimed to have taken another woman home that night and he feared Baxton may have thought he had sex with her.
Finks “admitted to ‘smoking weed’ and being high,” the investigator continued. Baxton left him at the Afton Gardens apartments in the 7400 block of West Alabama Street upon his return.
The investigator states
Finks “concedes whatever he said, it might have been bad enough for her to run onto the main lanes of the freeway in an attempt to escape from him.”
Baxton’s mother told police that her daughter was a prostitute from Las Vegas and that Finks told her in a phone call on the night of her death that she was with a customer, records show.
Investigators said they believe Finks paid for Baxton’s ticket from Las Vegas to Houston and the two of them had been staying at the West Alabama Street apartment for at least a month.
Finks’ phone is being searched for signs of more trafficking victims, which could lead to additional charges, Teare continued.