The man responsible for one of the worst crime sprees in recent western North Carolina history slipped through the criminal justice system multiple times over 15 months, despite arrests for attempted murder, assault, and shooting a sheriff’s deputy, and numerous warnings that he may have been in violation of his pretrial release conditions, records show.
Before he stabbed his girlfriend to death and embarked on a rampage that killed a newly retired police chief earlier this month, Ryan Ricky Houston had bonded out of jail and remained free even after violating his release conditions twice in the first week.
A transcript of a court hearing from one year ago, obtained by Asheville Watchdog, reveals that Buncombe Superior Court Judge Jacqueline Grant rejected the prosecutor’s request to revoke Houston’s bond and return him to jail, ruling instead to release him under house arrest.
The records from the case reveal a dangerous man with a history of violence who, unlike the vast majority of people accused of serious crimes, was able to hire private legal counsel and to go free on bail that was set at $1.6 million.
“This is the case nobody wants”
Houston had bonded out of jail on multiple charges from May 2023, including attempted first-degree murder. He tried to kill his estranged wife, Laura, assaulted her male friend, and then shot a sheriff’s deputy in the lobby of the Buncombe jail as his wife sought to have him arrested for domestic violence, according to court documents.

After posting bond, he was released from jail on conditions that included he wear an ankle monitor and keep it sufficiently charged.
Houston had been out of jail 10 hours when the battery on his monitoring device became critically low and subsequently died. The monitoring device was inoperative for several hours.
Judge Grant had a choice: revoke Houston’s bond and return him to jail as the prosecutor asked or release him again. One of the monitoring companies being considered was hesitant about accepting the assignment, according to a transcript of the Aug. 3, 2023, hearing obtained by Asheville Watchdog.
“This is the case that nobody wants, all right?” said Assistant District Attorney Kyle Sherard, according to the transcript. “I think Your Honor knows that.”
“Right,” the judge responded.
“Based on facts of the case, nobody wants to touch this,” Sherard said.
Buncombe District Attorney Todd Williams has publicly stated that his office consistently argued before the courts that “no conditions of release could secure public safety and that Houston should remain in jail.” But at the bond revocation hearing, Sherard asked that Houston be returned to jail only until the county pretrial services could take over his monitoring.
The county had the most reliable and thorough electronic monitoring system but not enough monitoring devices. Judge Grant had allowed Houston to be released with monitoring from a private company, Always Do Right, LLC, a Haywood County company that provides continuous alcohol monitoring, probation, house arrest, and domestic violence monitoring, while he waited for a county-issued monitor.

After hearing from Houston’s lawyer and from Doug Oliver, principal of Always Do Right, Grant said she did not think Houston “purposely was trying to dodge anything” and released him on house arrest.
Three days later, Houston’s device sent an alarm showing he was 630 feet from his wife’s home in violation of a court order that he stay at least 1,000 feet away. The monitoring company contacted Laura Houston, who said she was “safe and not home because she knew this would happen,” according to a violation report.
Houston was arrested again on a pretrial release violation, and Judge Grant signed a new order returning Houston to jail but only until a monitoring slot opened in the county’s pretrial services division. He was out again on Aug. 17, 2023.
“Typically, they get revoked immediately and they’re put right back in [jail], so this was a very, very shocking case that the bond was not revoked,” Oliver told The Watchdog.
Grant toldThe Watchdogthat Oliver said in the Aug. 3 hearing that the device he had fitted on Houston was not holding a charge properly.
“The state has to demonstrate that he, in fact, has violated the terms of his bond and his electronic monitoring,” Grant said. “If that device had been working appropriately, properly, no issue with it, and it was holding the charge like it was supposed to, and there wasn’t a question, then I would have revoked it.”
On the second violation, the judge said, pretrial services found the violation was in error, and that a second monitor on Houston showed he had not been in the restricted zone.
“At that point, and this was my last involvement with it, I said because there’s this issue with these electronic monitors that are being provided by [Oliver], he’s going to just have to sit in jail until there is a pretrial electronic monitor available,” the judge said.
Grant told the Watchdog that after Aug. 8, 2023, when she issued an order for Houston to remain in custody until “an electronic monitoring slot opens with Pretrial Services,” she had no further involvement with Houston’s cases.
The Buncombe Pretrial Services monitor became available Aug. 17, 2023, and Houston was released from jail.
Multiple alerts, no responses
Houston remained free for the next 11 months despite apparent violations of the terms of his release while under the supervision of Buncombe’s pretrial release, The Watchdog found in a review of court and county records.

The battery on the smartphone connected to his ankle monitor registered low or critically low 20 times despite a court order that he ensure the device was properly charged. It registered 169 alerts for a broken tether, meaning Houston was away from the phone he was required to carry “on your person 24 hours a day.”
Two violations on Houston were reported to 9-1-1 on Dec. 18 and Jan. 27, one by pretrial staff and the other by “monitoring center,” according to a log provided by the county. No other details were provided.
On July 22 this year, Houston’s device sent a tamper alert: “SIM card removed.”
Ten days later Houston ditched his monitoring device and crashed a car in McDowell County. First responders found his girlfriend, Malerie Crisp, dying of stab wounds.
Houston fled and broke into a business and a home, assaulting the homeowner, stole three more vehicles and caused a head-on collision while speeding the wrong way on Interstate 26, killing former Marshall police chief Mike Boone. Houston also died in the crash.
Boone, 54, had retired two days earlier. He was a former referee, detective and tractor trailer driver who loved animals and his granddaughter, “the light of his life,” his obituary said.
Crisp, 41, of Asheville, was a mother of two boys, a waitress at Waffle House and a “devoted Christian who loved the Lord,” according to her obituary.
Case coordinator resigns
Asked why no report of the SIM card tampering was filed to the court, county spokeswoman Lillian Govus said, “I cannot speak to this.”
Houston had been warned that any attempt to disable the settings on the phone would be a serious violation. It is also a crime.
Houston’s pretrial case coordinator, Nelly Vargas, resigned Aug. 9 “to pursue another opportunity,” her resignation letter said. She wrote that she would arrange for someone to drop off her laptop and badge the following workday and collect her personal belongings “as soon as possible.”
Govus did not respond to a question about whether the county had handled Houston’s case appropriately and declined a Watchdog request for an interview with someone familiar with pretrial services. The Justice Services director left in mid-July and hasn’t been replaced, Govus said.
“As we are without a director, I’m afraid we aren’t able to set up an interview,” she said in an email.
The county withheld records that would provide a more complete picture of what may have gone wrong.
“We have multiple documents that we are collecting and reviewing as part of both internal and criminal investigations,” Govus said. “We will release what is public in a reasonable amount of time.”
“A two-tiered system of justice”
Houston’s journey through the court system and ability to remain free despite such serious charges as shooting a sheriff’s deputy and attempting to kill his wife was highly unusual.
Houston’s bond originally had been set by Chief District Court Judge J. Calvin Hill at $1.5 million and later increased to $1.6 million, an amount most defendants could not afford – 80 percent are indigent, according to the Center for American Progress, an independent, nonpartisan policy institute that advocates for reforming cash bail.

“Bail creates a two-tiered system of justice by which those with money for release can return to their communities, while those without money are forced to remain incarcerated while they await trial,” according to the center. It also reported that Black defendants are assigned higher cash bail “than similarly situated white people.”
Houston owned a landscaping business, Lawn-N-Order, and eight properties that he put up as collateral for bond. He was also able to afford a private defense attorney, Thomas Amburgey of Asheville, who did not respond to a message seeking comment.
The conditions of Houston’s release initially required electronic monitoring by Buncombe’s pretrial services. Judge Grant, acting on a request from Amburgey, modified that order on July 31, 2023 for Always Do Right to monitor Houston, allowing him to get out of jail sooner.
Problems from the start
The arrangement created problems almost from the start. Oliver testified in the August 2023 bond revocation hearing that he instructed Houston to charge his device when he got home from jail around 5 p.m. on Aug. 1.
Around 2 a.m. the next morning, the device began vibrating as the battery went from low to critical to dead. “When it’s dying, it’s going to vibrate his leg aggressively, twice, every ten minutes,” Oliver said at the hearing.
Oliver was supposed to be receiving text alerts on Houston but was not notified of the battery issues until around noon on Aug. 2.
“I live way out in Haywood County, near Tennessee, so I get very poor signal out there,” Oliver testified.
Houston’s electronic monitor was dead from about 3 a.m. until noon when Oliver contacted him, according to testimony in the hearing.
“The Defendant’s behavior presents a clear disregard to the order of the court to follow the electronic monitoring provisions of pretrial release,” Sherard, the prosecutor, wrote in a motion to revoke Houston’s bond. “The defendant’s behavior also poses risk of additional danger to the alleged victim, Laura Houston, and her family.”
Houston and his lawyer offered explanations for why Houston allowed the battery to die despite the warning vibrations. Amburgey referenced a discussion in the judge’s chambers before the hearing.

“And again, I mentioned this in chambers, we’re talking about a guy who hasn’t slept in a room that’s not a concrete bed — like, he’s probably getting a deep sleep,” Amburgey said, according to the transcript.
Houston initiated contact with pretrial services the morning of Aug. 2, “a pretty good indication my client is trying to live up to everybody’s expectations,” Amburgey said.
In an Aug. 2 text exchange, Vargas, his pretrial case coordinator, asked Houston, “Did you not feel the monitor vibrating last night?”
“Yes,” he replied, adding that he charged it around 1 a.m. for 15 to 20 minutes. Records from the monitoring company indicate he charged the device for 5 minutes around 8:30 p.m. on Aug. 1.
“I have no intentions or thoughts or wants to contact anybody that I’m not supposed to,” Houston wrote to Vargas, texting her a photo of his leg with the ankle monitor.
Amburgey told the judge his client had made a “good-faith effort” to comply with his obligations and that the battery problems had been a “giant wake-up call.
Prosecutor asks jail, judge rules house arrest
Grant expressed regrets about her previous decision to allow monitoring by Always Do Right as a way of Houston being released sooner.
“We went this route because there was not an electronic monitor available at the time in pretrial release,” the judge said at the Aug. 3, 2023 hearing. “The alternative solution didn’t work out too well. Not that it’s the fault of anybody.”
She said she did not think Houston “was purposely, willfully, trying to ignore or do something here” but questioned why, when the device vibrated a low battery warning, “based on the fact that you can look at the monitor and see if it’s charging or not, that I would at least think you would look to see: Is it charging? Does it look like it’s charging? And call if you have any questions.”

“That, I think, a reasonable person would do — be a little more proactive,” Grant said.
The prosecutor asked that Houston be returned to jail until he could be monitored by pretrial services, but the judge decided instead to place him on house arrest until an opening became available with the county.
Renee Ray, a pretrial release supervisor with the county, attended the hearing. Judge Grant asked her how long it took for contact to be initiated with defendants on county monitors whose battery power is low.
“We have a 24-hour provider that’s watching while we’re also watching, so it’s immediate,” she said. “We text, we call, we do whatever we can and get them to charge their equipment.”
“Critical? It takes a lot for them to get to critical so we don’t let them get to critical,” Ray said.
The 20 low battery alerts on Houston’s phone after the county took over his monitoring included three that were critical. “It shall be the Defendant’s sole responsibility to ensure his device is properly charged,” Judge Grant’s Aug. 3 order said.
“Within the officer’s discretion”
Asked why none of the battery incidents resulted in a violation, Govus, the county spokeswoman, said: “Broadly speaking, a critically low battery generates a response from law enforcement but not necessarily a violation. If the responding officer finds that the defendant is willfully ignoring the need to charge the equipment, it is within the officer’s discretion to return the individual to custody.”
The pretrial coordinator reviews the circumstances and submits a violation report to the court if warranted, Govus said. “In situations where the individual has repeated low and critical battery alerts, the coordinator would need to have a conversation with the individual and warn them that a violation is the next course of action if the behavior continues.”
Asked if Houston received any warnings, Govus said, “I cannot speak to this.”
The county, she said, is “currently reviewing our processes and policies.”
Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Sally Kestin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter. Email skestin@avlwatchdog.org. The Watchdog’s reporting is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.