CHINA SPRING, Texas — The China Spring man who was charged with first-degree murder after he reportedly attacked a 38-year-old mother with a machete and concrete block also burglarized a home back in 2013.
Richard Tanner Ozment, 36, was arrested following the reported attack of Michaela Brooker on Sept. 21. McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara described the attack as "one of the most horrific, horrible, brutal, senseless attacks that we have seen in a long time."
Ozment was also in jail for burglarizing Clint Lewis' mother's home just down the street from where the attack reportedly happened.
"My mother lived in [that] house that I now own," Lewis said. "She lived there by herself and she'd gone into town or something."
Lewis said when his mother returned home, she found two people inside, including Ozment. He ran away right after.
"She was an elderly lady and she lived alone, and she knew the man that lived down the street from her," Lewis said. "So she was frightened for the rest of her life. It was horrible for her."
Police later caught and arrested Ozment. He was sentenced to 40 years for the burglary, but paroled out after serving 10.
"How, how did he get out of jail in the first place? Why, what, what would have convinced someone to have granted him parole to let him get back on the street with all the charges, all the nefarious things that he had done. I just don't, I don't get that," Lewis said.
"He never should've gotten out and he did," McNamara said during a news conference on Monday. "Anytime you see somebody paroled out early like this and they commit this kind of crime, it's senseless. It didn't have to happen," he said about Brooker's death.
After he reportedly attacked Brooker, Ozment fled and hid from authorities for 10 hours before they caught him hiding in a stock tank just 100 yards away. He was then arrested and booked in jail with a $1 million bond.
