Lucky Ward

As of September 2022, Ward remains on death row at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit in West Livingston and is currently appealing his sentence.

For the next ten years, Ward's murder trial would be delayed on numerous occasions. Among the reasons as to why this occurred was the prosecution's requests for more time to retest the DNA evidence, difficulty in finding witnesses and a trial date being cancelled due to Hurricane Harvey. This was made even worse by Ward's own behavior, as he was sanctioned for threatening to harm jail staff, attempting suicide on multiple occasions and misusing his medication. In 2018, another court appearance was delayed after he was charged with crafting a shank while incarcerated at the Harris County Jail. That same year, a sheriff's spokesman labeled him one of the most dangerous and high-maintenance inmates to be detained in the county.

No further murder victims have been linked to Ward until 2010, when he is suspected to have begun a months-long killing spree. The first suspected victim was 51-year-old Myra Chanel Ical, a transsexual janitor who was found dead near a trash container on 4300 Garrott on January 18, shortly after heading home from a Tejano concert. In February, Ward was arrested and imprisoned for two weeks for soliticting the services of a prostitute. On June 18, the partially decomposed body of 24-year-old Raquel Antoinette Mundy, a single mother with two children from Galveston, was found in a grassy field on 300 St. Charles, near some railroad tracks. Mundy, who was not homeless, had dropped off her mother and children at a Greyhound bus station, but was left stranded after her car was towed. She was last seen entering the car of a stranger in the downtown depot.

The first murder that has been linked to Ward dates back to April 1985, when the body of a woman named Birdell Louis was found behind a gas station in downtown Houston. Unlike his later victims, there were no apparent indications that Louis was homeless, but fingerprint evidence suggested that Ward was present at the crime at the time of her death. She was identified as a possible victim of his in 2013.

Around the early 1980s, Ward moved to Houston, where he lived on the streets and only occasionally earned money by working as a day laborer. From 1984 onwards, he was repeatedly arrested and served time for a variety of crimes, including soliciting prostitutes; possession and delivery of drugs; robbery; aggravated assault with a deadly weapon; assault causing bodily injury; resisting arrest; theft; failure to identify himself to law enforcement and criminal mischief. He continued to be unruly even when imprisoned, as he frequently attempted to escape confinement or assaulted prison staff.

Lucky Ward (born November 1, 1964) is an American murderer and suspected serial killer who strangled two people in September 2010 in Houston, Texas, but has been linked to at least four additional homicides dating back to 1985, with which he has not been charged. Convicted and sentenced to death on two counts after a 10-year delay in his trial, he is currently on death row.

Lucky Ward was born on November 1, 1964, in Brazoria County, Texas. He grew up in an unstable home, where he was harshly treated by his disciplinarian father and was sexually abused by an uncle. These experiences affected his mental health and led him to develop a schizoaffective disorder. At age 14, he raped an 83-year-old woman in Brazoria County, but his first arrest came two years later for an unspecified crime.

The final suspected victim was 62-year-old Carol Elaine Flood, a homeless woman who was found strangled to death on the outside stairwell of a YMCA building on 1600 Louisiana on October 10. She was nude from waist down, was strangled with some sort of ligature and had apparently suffered injuries to her face.