LAS VEGAS (Court TV) — Months after a mother was allegedly beaten and killed in her own home, charges were filed against her suspected attacker. But the arrest may not have come to be had it not been for the hard work of the alleged victim’s daughter.
Leslie Hope Houston is seen in an undated photo. (Court TV)
Leslie Hope Houston, 46, was found dead at her home on Oct. 10, 2024. Her husband allegedly claimed that she had been drinking before she fell. But Houston’s daughter, Megan Tomlinson, wasn’t satisfied.
On Oct. 11, 2024, Tomlinson saw her mother in the ICU at the hospital. “I was so relieved,” she said as she recalled the incident during a CrimeCon panel with the mother of Gabby Petito on Saturday. “Thank God, she’s OK, she’s going to make it.” But a doctor quickly told her the prognosis was grim. “I remember a doctor came in and said, ‘She’s not coming out of this.’ And I just fell to the ground and I just cried.”
Before her hospitalization, Tomlinson had been concerned about her mother, who was an alleged victim of domestic abuse at the hands of her husband. “We’d been concerned, because the last time I heard from her, she left me a voicemail and said something about he’s been hitting me and he’s says he’s not going to stop,” Tomlinson said.
In the hospital, Tomlinson said she immediately noticed many injuries on her mother’s body. She had abrasions and contusions covering much of her body, with her feet looking nearly black from bruises. Her mother’s toes were all broken and she had suffered a fractured thumb. She also noticed what appeared to be redness and fingernail marks on her mother’s neck. “I knew she was being strangled because she told me,” Tomlinson said. “It was happening so often, I was so afraid for her, and I knew about strangulation being so deadly, because I have been in a relationship where I was strangled.”
Megan Tomlinson (L) sits with Nicole Schmidt (R) at a CrimeCon panel. (Court TV)
Speaking of her mother’s husband, Tomlinson said, “I hardly knew the guy.” But Tomlinson knew enough to document every injury she could find on her mother’s body. She went so far as to create a 3D mockup of how she believes her mother was strangled.
When Tomlinson spoke to the police, they told her they needed to wait for the autopsy report to come back. That autopsy revealed elevated levels of ethanol and ruled that Houston’s cause of death was intracranial hemorrhage and the manner was undetermined. The autopsy failed to note any of the injuries to the victim’s upper body, lower body, or extremities. “It wasn’t just one person who did not follow through and do what they should have,” Tomlinson said. “It was a collection of everybody in her case.”
Houston’s husband, John Daughtery Jr., was arrested and charged with murder as a habitual offender on May 28, 2025. He pleaded not guilty and is due to return to court for a dispositional hearing on June 10.
