Perry Allen Austin was sentenced to death after pleading guilty to the murder of David Karim Kazmouz.

David Kazmouz disappeared after leaving his neighbor’s yard in the direction of his home in the 6400 block of Leader on August 19, 1992.

Houston police and the FBI conducted an extensive investigation. Several concerned citizens assisted in searches for the boy without result. David’s skeletal remains were found on April 24, 1993, in a wooded area about six miles from his home.

Perry Austin had befriended David’s teen-age brother. Austin was questioned during the investigation and made several incriminating statements. He admitted he had David in his car the day the boy disappeared and claimed he dropped David off at a convenience store nearby.

During the investigation, it was discovered Austin was having a sexual relationship with a 14-year-old girl. He was charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child, pleaded guilty to the charge and was sentenced.

In January 2001, a police officer received a letter from Austin who requested that the investigator come visit him in regards to the David Kazmouz case. The officer met with Austin at the Hughes Prison Unit in Gatesville, TX where Austin was serving a 30-year sentence for the sexual assault of a child.

At that meeting, Austin gave a recorded confession in David’s abduction and murder. He said he wanted to receive the death penalty. Prosecutors told a Houston jury that Austin was trying to punish the child's older brother. Prosecutor Lucy Davidson told jurors Austin was a drug courier for a Houston street gang in August 1992 when he befriended David Kazmouz's 16-year-old brother, Karrem. The prosecutor said when some drugs came up missing, Austin thought Karrem Kazmouz had stolen from him. David Kazmouz was abducted a short time later.

In August 1992, Davidson said, Austin had been on parole for about a year after 1978 rape, attempted rape and aggravated robbery convictions in Dallas. The victims were his sisters and mother. In Houston, he was a drug courier for a street gang when he befriended Karrem Kazmouz. When drugs turned up missing, Davidson said, Austin thought Kazmouz, 16 at the time, had stolen from him.

David Kazmouz was abducted from his Sharpstown neighborhood Aug. 19, 1992, and an intensive search and nationwide billboard campaign turned up nothing for eight months. When the boy's skeletal remains were found in April 1993 in a wooded area about six miles from his home, Davidson said, the cause of death could not be determined.

However, it was ruled a homicide because the leg bones were tied together. During the investigation, authorities discovered that Austin's girlfriend was 14, and he pleaded guilty to sexual assault of a child and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. In 1995, he was given an additional 20 years for stabbing an inmate.

But he did not discuss the Kazmouz case until he confessed in a letter to a Houston homicide detective in January 2001. Davidson said Austin picked up Kazmouz near his home, injected him with Demerol and slit his throat.

The boy's mother, Fay Kazmouz, testified that her family had been guilt-ridden since the child's abduction. Her second son, Michael, 13 at the time, blamed himself because he was watching David that day while she was at work, the mother said.

Early in the investigation, she said, "I looked him (Austin) straight in the face and asked him if he knew where my son was. He looked me straight in the face and said, No."

Austin represented himself in the punishment phase of the trial. He did not testify, but during closing statements he told the jury the evidence that prosecutors Luci Davidson and Renee Magee presented against him was correct. "Pretty much everything they said about me is true," Austin told the panel. "I'm violent, mean . . . Sometimes I have no conscience . . . I've been like this all my life. I'm not about to change."

In deciding whether Austin should spend his life in prison or be executed, the jury was asked to answer two special issue questions. The first was whether Austin was a future danger. If they unanimously agreed he was, the jury could then move to the second question regarding mitigating circumstances. Austin told the jurors that if they sent him back to prison he would commit more acts of violence. Then he said there were no mitigating factors, "no reason for killing him (Kazmouz)."

Davidson told the jury that Austin had spent only three years of his adult life interacting in society. And in that time he had raped his sister, robbed his sister and mother, sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl and killed Kazmouz. "That is what he has done in the three years we have let him out in this society," Davidson said. "We certainly can't trust him ever again in the free society. But we can't trust him in the prison system."

Austin had been on parole about a year from the 1978 rape and robbery convictions when he befriended the Kazmouz brothers in 1992. Although he was always considered a suspect in Kazmouz's death, it wasn't until January 2001 that he confessed from prison. During the initial investigation, police discovered Austin was having sex with a 14-year-old girl. He pleaded guilty and has been serving a 30-year sentence for sexual assault of a child.

In 1995, another 20 years was added to his sentence for stabbing an inmate. He also has a lengthy disciplinary prison record that includes assaulting guards. "Society can no longer handle him. We are through," Davidson said. "Because Karrem took from him, he was going to take from Karrem. He took his little brother," Davidson told the jury.