By PAIGE HEWITT
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
May 17, 2010, 6:47AM
A northwest Harris County man has been charged with capital murder, accused of shooting his pregnant wife to death in the driveway of the couple's home Sunday morning.
Michael Alan McDougall, 37, is being held without bail in the Harris County Jail.
He is accused of shooting wife Jennifer Elaine McDougall, 30, in front of the home where the couple recently moved with their three children.
The woman was about seven months pregnant, authorities said. Her unborn child, a girl due in July, also died.
“Neighbors heard screaming and loud gunfire,” Harris County homicide Sgt. Curtis Brown said. “They came outside and saw the man and woman in a physical struggle. The neighbors went to help and saw him with a handgun and ran back home.”
Investigators have not released any information related to a motive in the fatal shooting. There is no evidence of prior domestic violence in the household, police said.
Three children, ages 2, 8 and 10, were at the home in the 18700 block of Autumn Breeze when their mother was slain. Police are unsure whether they witnessed the shooting.
Neighbors in Spring Creek Oaks, an upscale neighborhood near Louetta and Kuykendahl, heard the commotion.
“I heard a woman screaming, ‘Help me! Somebody, please help me! What are you doing?'” said Gloria Hochanadel, who went outside to get a trash can around 10:30 a.m. Sunday when she was startled by cries for help and the sound of gunfire. “And then I heard the gunshots. There were four or five. There was no hesitation. They were bam, bam bam.”
Co-worker reacts
Hochanadel ran inside her home, alerted her husband and called 911. The couple went outside a short while later and saw police officers taking McDougall into custody, she said.
“I was so angry, I wanted to go down there and hit him,” said Steve Hochanadel, who works with the suspect at an oil-and-gas firm downtown. “I wish I had known what was going on. I might have been able to help.”
Both families relocated from Denver last fall, Steve Hochanadel said.
He said McDougall was pleasant and professional while in Denver. He noticed that he had been working late-night hours recently..
“I just found it strange that he was working those crazy hours,” Steve Hochanadel said. “There was just something different.”
Gloria Hochanadel described Jennifer McDougall as a sweet redhead from Wyoming who was involved at a nearby church. She said Jennifer McDougall spoke a few weeks ago about how excited she was to be having her fourth child.
“She told me she just had an ultrasound and they knew it was going to be a little girl,” Gloria said. “She was upbeat, and said she was going out on a girls' night with friends that night to see a movie.”
Expressed happiness
Recently, the Hochanadels were on an evening stroll and saw McDougall also taking a walk. He, too, Gloria said, expressed happiness about the coming baby.
Neighbor Terri Elliott, who rented the McDougalls a home for a few months in the subdivision before they purchased their new home, described the suspect as a pleasant man who hugs rather than shakes hands, but said he struck her as “very controlling.”
While the family was leasing the home it remained on the market, she said. When Elliott wanted to show the house to a potential buyer, McDougall acted a little odd.
“If one thing was out of order, he didn't want anyone looking at it,” Elliott said. “He was a nit-picker.”
paige.hewitt@chron.com
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