A North Texas man charged with killing his wife and daughter claimed his 10-year-old son committed the murders.
The Wise County Sheriff’s Office said an emergency call came in around 8:30 a.m. on June 12 from the brother-in-law of 42-year-old Kimberly Kellam. The man said he had not seen Kellam or her 11-year-old daughter, Rachel Morairity, in months.
“They hadn’t said anything at this point because they had just been told other information that everything’s okay. Maybe she’s going to be alright. They were hoping for the best,” said Akin, NBC 5 reported.
Akin said officials located Kellam’s body inside a garage at 1356 County Road 4371 in Decatur. She was inside a giant “Tupperware container.” They found Rachel Morairity’s body under a tarp outside the garage.
Police located a suspect on June 13 at a motel in Irving, 45-year-old Robert Morairity Jr. — Rachel Morairity’s father and Kellam’s husband. He was with his two other children, a 3-year-old and a 10-year-old, according to The Messenger.
A news release from the Wise County Sheriff’s Office said Morairity initially denied knowing where his wife and daughter were but that he eventually admitted otherwise.
“Morairity, at first, claimed he had not seen his wife or oldest daughter in six months. Eventually, he admitted his wife and 11-year-old daughter were deceased, and their remains were inside the garage at the CR 4371 address [they were last known to occupy],” stated the release, per The Messenger.
“We don’t know exactly what the motive was, exactly how they were killed, but we know it was at [Morairity’s] hand,” Akin said, according to Law & Crime.
Morairity allegedly told investigators that his 10-year-old son was responsible for the deaths, claiming the boy stabbed Kellam in November 2022 and smothered his sister with plastic in January or February of this year.
Akin said to The Messenger that he believed the evidence told a different story.
Morairity is currently in jail with an $800,000 bond, according to WFAA. He is charged with murder, capital murder, and tampering with evidence in the form of a human corpse.
Crime in North Texas has been a growing concern in recent years, especially in Dallas, where murders were up more than 20% year over year in the first four months of 2023.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the Dallas Police Department faces a significant shortage of police officers. The department currently employs just over 3,100 officers, a number Chief Eddie Garcia told The Dallas Express is “hundreds” shy of ideal.
The impact of the city’s crime problem is especially felt in the downtown area, which suffers from an alarmingly greater crime rate than downtown Fort Worth, which is patrolled by a dedicated police unit and private uniformed security guards.
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