A 64-year-old Houston man was sentenced to 60 years this week for fatally stabbing his girlfriend as she tried to leave him to go back to Dallas, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced.

“The most dangerous time for a victim of domestic violence is when they are trying to leave the relationship,” Ogg said. “That is exactly why we take any and all allegations of domestic violence so seriously.”

Kenneth B. Howard, was convicted of murder by a jury on Monday and sentenced by a judge in the fatal stabbing of 37-year-old Pamela D. Pratt on July 12, 2019.

Pratt was a mother of three who was in a dating relationship with Howard. He persuaded her to move to Houston from Dallas.

During their relationship, Howard had shot at Pratt’s 18-year-old son and was on bond for that charge when he committed the murder. In 1984, he had also been convicted of stabbing his ex-wife seven times. That woman survived.

Howard was driving Pratt when the two got into an argument about her leaving, and he stabbed her at least four times in the chest and neck. Instead of taking her to the hospital, he drove around for at least an hour before he went home and called the Houston Police Department. He told officers that she pulled the knife on him, and later admitted that he got the knife away from her and stabbed her even though she was not a threat to him.

Assistant District Attorney Anthony Osso, who prosecuted the case with ADA Jarrell Gibson, said Howard had a history of using violence to coerce people in his life, especially women he was dating.

“He brought this family down from Dallas and when the abuse started, they decided they wanted to leave and he didn’t like that,” Osso said. “There’s a family that doesn’t have their mother anymore, and we know what he’s capable of, so we argued that he shouldn’t be allowed to do this to anyone ever again.”

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