Alain Bell, 46, was arrested around 3pm at a gas station in southeast Houston. Authorities say an officer spotted him driving on Loop 610 West and he led them on a short car chase. He is charged with murder.
The fatal shooting happened Monday at David Stoneham's home in the 500 block of West Troy near Stuebner-Airline. Police say Stoneham and his daughter had just arrived home when Bell, the girl's stepfather, confronted them.
"The second gunshot I was headed out the door, said neighbor Linda Walker.
That's when Walker says she and her husband heard yelling coming from a few doors down at Stoneham's house. It was his 17-year-old daughter who had yelled.
"I came out and walked to the street and I heard that child scream and I said I'm going to go down there," she said. "He said, 'yeah because there is a body laying down there in the street.'"
Walker says when she reached the house; Stoneham's young son had come outside. But his frantic teen daughter had witnessed the shooting.
"I said, 'do you know who that is?' and she said, 'Yeah that's my dad.' I said, 'Oh the fireman? And she said, 'Yes, that was my stepfather who shot him.'"
Houston police say the 17-year old had just arrived home with her dad, a 30-year veteran with HFD and had walked toward the garage when Bell walked up.
The teen told police she heard what sounded like a shotgun being racked then saw her father and stepfather struggling before witnessing Bell shoot her father twice, killing him.
Minutes later, Walker looked out her window and saw the suspect casually drive away.
"His window was down and you know how sometimes you drive and you put your arm in the window, that's the way he passed us," Walker said. "I know that was traumatic for that little girl because she kept hugging me. They need to find him and they need to put him away for a good long time."
Bell is a registered sex offender who spent time in prison for aggravated sexual assault and also aggravated robbery.
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