Suspect in 1990 Harris County Lovers' Lane murders dies in jail

The arrest that ended nearly 36 years of silence in the Lovers' Lane killings ended another way, too: Floyd William Parrott died in jail before Harris County prosecutors could put him on trial for the murders of Cheryl Henry and Garland Andrew Atkinson.

Parrott, 64, was found unresponsive Tuesday morning in his cell at the Lancaster County Jail in Lincoln, Nebraska, where he was being held while awaiting extradition to Harris County. Lancaster County officials said staff began life-saving measures before paramedics arrived. Authorities said a grand jury will review the death, as is standard practice in inmate deaths.

For the Henry and Atkinson families, the case now sits in a painful middle ground. Prosecutors made a long-awaited arrest in March after a tip and DNA evidence linked Parrott to the 1990 double homicide, but his death leaves the case without a courtroom verdict and without the chance for a public accounting of what happened on west Houston's Enclave Parkway that night.

Houston police said the killings took place Aug. 23, 1990, in a cul-de-sac at 1300 Enclave Parkway. A security guard first spotted a car parked there and found an unresponsive woman. Officers then found an unresponsive man nearby. Henry, 22, and Atkinson, 21, both had injuries to their necks and were pronounced dead at the scene.

The case remained unsolved for nearly 36 years until the Harris County District Attorney's Office, the Houston Police Department's Cold Case Unit, the FBI and the Texas Office of the Attorney General Cold Case and Missing Persons Unit identified Parrott in March 2026. Houston police said the breakthrough came from a tip and DNA evidence. Investigators said DNA from a 1996 sexual assault case matched swabs taken from Cheryl Henry during her autopsy sexual-assault exam, and court records showed a separate June 1990 sexual assault case produced a case-to-case DNA hit.

Prosecutors also said Parrott had a history of impersonating law enforcement, with arrests in May 1988 and May 1990 for posing as a police officer. They said he was out on bond when the June 1990 assault and the August murders occurred. Prosecutors believe he may have had other victims and have urged anyone who recognized him or was stopped by someone claiming to be police to come forward.

At the arrest announcement, Cheryl Henry's sister, Shane Henry, said the family had waited decades for an arrest and felt relief, though not closure. Parrott's death now closes off one path to final answers, but it does not erase the evidence already assembled in the case record or the questions Harris County still must answer about one of Houston's most notorious unsolved killings.