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HOUSTON, TEXAS: In what the prosecutor referred to as one of the worst cases he has handled, a man was given the highest possible sentence for two counts of injuring a child. Austin Reid, a Texas man, will serve the ensuing decades in prison for two child harm incidents involving two different children for hurting them in a disturbingly similar manner. Sadly, one of them resulted in the death of a 2-year-old child in 2019.
Reid, 25, pleaded guilty to both charges and was given a judge-imposed 50-year term for each. The child in question, Lucas Samora, belonged to his girlfriend, Emily Aust, who she shared from an earlier relationship. According to the prosecutor, Lucas died in May of the same year from serious wounds all over his body. His autopsy was declared to be unclear. Moreover, Reid was also charged with injuring Lucas' half-brother.
Who is Austin Reid?
Austin Reid is a 25-year-old Texas man who was given a 50-year term for two counts of child injury offenses. He is a native of Deer Park, located in the greater Houston area. Reid is claimed to have had a long record of violence towards his father, stepfather, both children, and an inmate at the Harris County Jail. Moreover, he admitted to being a drug addict, regularly using substances like Xanax, methamphetamine, and marijuana.
Reid, who had previously been on the run in Colorado, was apprehended in March in the small town of Fairplay, the county seat of Park County, only days after pleading guilty to two counts of causing physical harm to a child in a Harris County courtroom, as reported local ABC station KTRK. After he skipped the sentencing hearing for the child injury charges, authorities discovered he had departed the Lone Star State. After his arrest, Reid was given five additional charges, including failure to identify by an escapee, resisting arrest, escaping arrest, having fraudulent license plates, and felon in possession of a firearm.
The Harris County District Attorney's Office reported on Thursday, July 21, that the defendant was sentenced on Wednesday, July 20, to 50 years in state prison for each count of child injury after a few months of delay. District Judge Mike Wilkinson decided that the sentences would run concurrently. Notably, Reid will need to serve at least 25 years in prison before he is eligible for parole.
What did Austin Reid do?
Lucas Samora, 2, died in May 2019 for a reason that remains mysterious. Reid maintained that the boy had drowned in the bathtub, but an autopsy revealed that he had more than 20 burns from cigarettes, as well as brain bleeding, spinal cord hemorrhaging, and optic nerve sheath hemorrhaging. These wounds were a clear sign of child abuse. The deceased child's grandmother, Darlene Scrivner, previously said, "The injuries that were all over his body – there’s was no way this was an accident in any way, and we did not want it to be looked at as an accident," to KTRK.
Reid was being investigated by the Houston Police Department and Child Protective Services when his girlfriend, Aust, gave birth to the dead boy's half-brother. In January 2020, Reid brought the second boy to the hospital for a suspected elbow dislocation. As per a press release, the DA's office stated that Reid told medical staffers "the infant had gotten his arm caught in a laundry basket five days earlier." At the hospital, staffers called authorities because the baby had signs of child abuse, including a brain bleed, a broken arm, burns on his fingertips, and other injuries.
The Texas Children's Hospital doctor who treated both children stated at the sentencing hearing that neither boy's injuries were unintentional, disagreeing with the toddler's autopsy. Referring to Reid, lead prosecutor Gilbert Sawtelle said, "He chose drugs and violence over family and the people who loved him. These are horrific and unthinkable crimes, and he deserves to be sentenced to 50 years," as per KTRK.
