HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — A Waller man awaiting trial for capital murder in the April 2022 beating death of his grandmother now faces another murder charge.
Chad Maydwell is accused of killing his cellmate at the Harris County Jail in November 2022. We're working to learn why the murder charge wasn't filed until Tuesday, November 19, more than two years after Michael Griego was beaten to death.
Editor's note: The above video originally aired in 2022.
According to court documents, Maydwell repeatedly punched and kicked Griego and continued beating him as he lay bleeding on the jail cell floor. Griego was one of more than two dozen Harris County Jail inmates who died in 2022, the highest number in two decades. That sparked a federal investigation at the request of Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.
80-year-old NW Harris County grandmother beaten to death
A few months earlier, on April 9, 2022, the Harris County Sheriff's Office said family members found Judith Maydwell dead in her home on Golden Sands Drive, near the intersection of West and Telge roads.
Deputies found the victim dead from blunt force trauma on the living room floor. A nearby sliding glass door had been broken.
When investigators interviewed family members, they learned the victim's then-30-year-old grandson, Chad Maydwell, was wanted by the Grimes County Sheriff's Office in connection with the aggravated assault of his father that happened on March 7 of that year.
According to records, Maydwell was also convicted of assault on a family member in 2021.
Neighbors reported seeing his vehicle at his grandmother's home on Friday.
The HCSO Warrants Unit tracked down Maydwell a few miles away the following day. He fled into a nearby wooded area but was captured a short time later with the help of a K-9 unit and helicopters.
Authorities said Maydwell confessed to killing his grandmother and assaulting his father.