HOUSTON, TEXAS: A Texas man has been apprehended in connection to the murder of a 25-year-old young mother whose body was found in a decomposed state earlier this summer in the back of a borrowed U-Haul truck at a storage facility, Law and Crime reports.
According to a criminal complaint filed by the Houston Police Department, Tara Groves was discovered on June 9, “laying on a couch” and “wrapped in several layers of plastic” while “underneath a variety of debris” in the back of the locked truck.
Authorities also noted that a small amount of methamphetamine, a glass pipe, and several “empty naloxone containers” were found wrapped up in the plastic that was used to wrap her lifeless body. The complaint states that an anonymous caller was aware of where the deceased woman’s body was.
Who is John Byron Wilson?
John Byron Wilson, 38, is charged with one count of tampering with or fabricating physical evidence, according to the HPD. A witness informed the authorities that three days after Groves’ body was found, a man he knows as "Byron" had asked to borrow his truck to “move some furniture.”
The witness further stated that the accused had the truck for about three days and returned it “late one night.” HPD Officer Mark Stahlin wrote in the complaint that the witness claimed Byron admitted “there was the body of a dead female in the back of the U-Haul truck,” while he gave him a ride back home.
According to the complaint, the witness continued to tell the authorities that Byron told him a “woman had overdosed on narcotics” at the defendant’s house and the defendant didn’t want to get authorities involved because “another woman had recently overdosed and died” at his house.
Police note that the first dead woman was named Natalia Salinas who died at the residence on May 7. The accused was the 911 caller at that time. “Byron had decided to get rid of the most recent body instead of calling the police,” the document reads. “[The witness] immediately told his wife [who] reported this information to the police.”
The witness's wife had a different narrative
The wife of the witness gave a slightly different account of events during her own interview. She told police the man they both knew as “Byron” borrowed the truck on the evening of June 8 and returned it “late” that same night . She said that Byron claimed he needed it “to move some furniture that had come infested with bed bugs,” according to the complaint.
The wife went on to tell the authorities that she was also present at the ride in which her husband gave the defendant back home but she fell asleep. She then apparently woke up to the story of the body.
Another witness, who claims to look after the victim's child, told police that Groves would regularly send her the address of a location which meant she would be doing drugs there and wanted the caretaker to have her location. The deceased woman sent one such message on June 3 which turned out to be the last message she would ever send.
The complaint says the address of that location was Wilson’s residence in Houston.
What did Tara Groves' mother-in-law say?
Delores Williams, Groves’ mother-in-law, told the authorities that during a search for Groves who was reported missing at that time, she saw a U-Haul truck parked outside of Wilson’s residence on June 8. The defendant allegedly told police during a brief phone call on June 14 that the victim had been at his house where she had “gotten drunk, stolen fentanyl, and had then left at some point.”
Wilson, however, cut the call short and told the police that he had nothing else to say about the woman’s death. The wife of the first witness sent the HPD a screenshot later that same night in which the accused reportedly admitted that he was in trouble.
He also offered his friend $20,000 if he “told police that it was [the witness] who knew about the body in the truck and that [the witness] had asked [the defendant] to drive the truck with no knowledge of what was in the back.”
How did Tara Groves die?
Police believe Groves overdosed and died during the early morning hours of June 3 at Wilson’s house shortly after arriving.
According to the complaint, her lifeless body was then left there until June 8 when Wilson wrapped her up along with her drug paraphernalia, put her on a couch, covered the couch in debris, put the couch in the truck, and left her to decompose at the U-Haul storage facility.
John Byron Wilson was arrested on August 3 and appeared in court on August 10. He is currently detained in the Harris County Jail on a $35,000 bond.
