August 6, 2024 - Charges have been filed against a suspect arrested in the death of a woman believed to have occurred in August of 2014, but not reported to Houston police homicide detectives until three years later.

The suspect, Donny Soundara Daosavanh, 37, is charged with murder and unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon in the 184th State District Court.  A booking photo of Daosavanh is attached to this news release.

Daosavanh is accused in the killing of his mother, Amnoun Sayphanya, believed to be 60 at the time of her death in 2014.  Her body has not been recovered.

HPD Homicide Division Sergeants M. Burrow, R. Watson and Detective E. May reported:

In October of 2017, the HPD Homicide Division received information that a male identified as Donny Daosavanh had confessed to a relative that he had killed his mother, Ms. Sayphanya, who had been living with Daosavanh and was financially dependent on him.  Daosavanh was soon arrested on an unrelated warrant and also confessed to homicide Investigators his role in the beating death of his mother with an object.  He said he later disposed of his mother's body by burying her at an unknown location, but he declined to provide the location of her remains because he did not want to be reincarcerated. 

Extensive efforts were made to locate the body of Ms. Sayphanya or to find any physical evidence of the homicide, but all efforts proved unsuccessful.

Additional investigation eventually provided sufficient evidence of the murder to corroborate the confession and establish the murder appeared to have occurred on or about August 2014, inside the apartment the mother and son shared at 827 Oak Street. 

Last Thursday (August 1), a warrant was issued for Daosavanh's arrest and he was taken into custody by members of the Northeast Patrol Division Crime Suppression Team.  Daosavanh was subsequently booked into the Harris County Jail.

The remains of Ms. Sayphanya have still not been recovered.  Anyone with information on the whereabouts of her remains or in this case is urged to contact the HPD Homicide Division at 713-222-TIPS or speak anonymously to Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.