Inset: Steven Eberly (Harris County Sheriff). Background: Home in Houston, Texas, where Eberly killed a contractor working on renovations (KPRC).
A man in Texas is in custody after he allegedly murdered a contractor who was hired for home renovations, placing the body in a box and allegedly hiring someone to relocate it.
“This was a strange one,” Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
According to Gonzalez, law enforcement responded around 11 a.m. on Friday to a property in the 4000 block of Tim Allen Court in Houston due to a hit-and-run incident. Officers later located the fleeing driver, who revealed he had seen a deceased person in a house. He detailed that a man, identified as 36-year-old Steven Eberly, compensated him for assisting in moving boxes and furniture from the residence.
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When he went to Eberly’s home to complete the work, he found a body in one of those boxes, Gonzalez said.
The individual escaped the scene in Eberly’s truck while Eberly attempted to access the vehicle from the truck bed, according to the sheriff. Eberly fell off when the driver crashed the vehicle. Subsequently, officers placed Eberly under arrest.
This was a strange one: on Friday, 5/16/25, at abt 11am, @HCSOTexas patrol units responded to multiple calls in the vicinity of the 4000 blk of Tim Allen Ct. Initial calls were reporting a vehicle crash where the striking vehicle had fled the scene.
Also being recv’d, was a… pic.twitter.com/0c8ySFNftG
— Ed Gonzalez (@SheriffEd_HCSO) May 18, 2025
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Detectives determined the contractor had been working on home renovations. Local NBC affiliate KPRC interviewed Eberly’s girlfriend who also lived in the home in question. She said the contractor had been working on a bathroom renovation. The girlfriend told the TV station she was at work when the incident occurred.
Court records identified the victim as Luis Silva-Mendez. After taking Eberly to the hospital for the injuries in the crash, cops took him to the Harris County Jail where he remains without bond. In addition to murder, the defendant stands accused of tampering with evidence. He allegedly tried to conceal the murder weapon and a cell phone “with intent to impair its availability as evidence in the investigation,” a complaint said.
Deputies have yet to reveal a motive for the homicide. Eberly has a court hearing scheduled for Monday.
