Ohio man Arron Lee Lawson stands trial for the brutal shooting deaths of four of his relatives, including an 8-year-old boy. He is accused of ending the lives of 25-year-old Stacey Jackson, her 8-year-old son Devin Holston, Jackson’s 43-year-old mother Tammy McGuire, and 50-year-old father Don McGuire at the family’s home on October 11, 2017.
This trial is expected to finally show why Lawson allegedly murdered the family. Authorities haven’t publicly suggested a motive. Not even Todd Holston, one of the survivors of the attack with his then-two-year-old son, didn’t provide much of an explanation when he spoke to The Columbus Dispatch in October 2017. He’s Jackson’s husband. They only got married the previous May.
He said he didn’t know why Lawson did it.
“He was down at my house almost every day,” he said. “We’d make him meals.”
Holston told the outlet that he was driving home when he tried to call his wife while on the way home. At first, he couldn’t. That part of southern Ohio had bad cellphone reception. He became worried, though, and called her parents to check things out at his trailer home. They did, but it ended tragically. Holston said he was on the phone when he heard his mother-in-law yell, “Oh my God!” and then a gunshot.
He told the Dispatch he arrived at the trailer to find Lawson, a cousin of the McGuire family, by the doorway. Holston claimed the suspect looked “possessed.” Lawson attacked him with a knife, stabbing him 10 times, but Holton, at 300 pounds, outweighed him and was able to “beat the living crap out of him.”
The defendant fled the scene, authorities said. They arrested him after a 36-hour manhunt.
Lawson was indicted on four counts of aggravated murder, one count of attempted murder, one count of felonious assault, one count of aggravated burglary, one count of rape, one count of abuse of corpse, one count of kidnapping, one count of tampering with evidence, one count of theft of a motor vehicle, and one count of failure to comply with order or signal of a police, according to records viewed by Law&Crime.
[Image via Lawrence County]