Roommate stabbed woman 28 times after fight over cat, records say

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A 40-year-old man, Chester Lamar Grant, has been charged in his roommate's death after police say a woman was found stabbed inside their southeast Houston apartment last month.

The Houston Police Department said just before 4 p.m. on April 26, officers were called to an apartment complex on Goforth Street for a welfare check. When officers arrived and knocked on the door, no one responded, and they found blood on the back patio.

A woman, identified as 23-year-old Elizabeth Odunsi, was found on the kitchen floor with multiple stab wounds and pronounced dead at the scene.

Police said Grant was discovered in a bedroom with at least one stab wound and was taken to the hospital in critical condition. It is unclear how he was wounded, but investigators believe there is a chance it was self-inflicted.

Investigators later identified Grant as the victim's roommate and the suspect in this case. He was arrested last week, on Friday, May 2, and has been charged with murder.

The two lived in an offsite student housing quadplex. Odunsi was set to graduate days after her death from Texas Women's University with a nursing degree, according to the university's website. Grant was a student at Fordham University, according to a magistrate.

In probable cause court, a magistrate said the two were in a fight over Grant's cat and referred to it as a "brutal murder."

Houston police confirm they were called out to the quadplex several times in the past. People who live in the building said officers were on site for a fight between the roommates hours before Odunsi's body was discovered.

It came out in court that Grant has been arrested and convicted several times in Washington state for domestic violence and most recently in 2023 for violating a protective order.

Individual rooms are rented out in the building on Goforth by "For a Place to Live" and roommates are paired at random. On the company's website, it says, "We don't use any criteria to match roommate compatibility to place roommates."

The company said they run background checks on applicants.

"If the applicant has questionable items in the background that we think are not a fit for a shared house, we asked that they get a private unit," the website says.

ABC13 reached out to For a Place to Live to find out if they were aware of Grant's past arrests and if they knew about the conflict between Odunsi and Grant. They did not return the call.

Grant's bond was set at $500,000.

UPDATE 5/8/25:
After our ABC13 report aired, we received the following statement, shared below in full, from the landlord of "For a Place to Live."

"We would like to address the recent incident that occurred at one of our rental properties located at 6510 Goforth Street in Houston, Texas. Please know that we are deeply saddened and disturbed by what has occurred. From what we have learned through various reports, it seems like senseless violence took the life of a young woman.

We offer this property for rent, which is a two-bedroom, two-bathroom shared-living unit where each resident has a private bedroom and bathroom, with shared access to the kitchen and common living areas. All applicants are screened through a background check performed by a third party, SafeRent Solutions, before being approved as a resident.

On the morning of Saturday, April 26, 2025, we visited the property after realizing we had missed messages from Ms. Odunsi sent late the previous evening, Friday, April 25. We were able to visit with Ms. Odunsi, and we learned that an argument had taken place between her and Chester Grant and that the Houston Police Department had responded that night. An incident report from the argument was filed at that time with HPD. Prior to this, we had received no reports of any similar incidents.

While we were able to communicate with Ms. Odunsi during our visit, we were unable to speak with Chester Grant as he did not respond to our request. We left a written note at the property requesting to speak with him.

Later that same afternoon, we were contacted by the Houston Police Department and asked to return to the property. Officers were present and conducting an investigation; however, no details were shared with us at that time regarding the nature of the incident. The following day, we learned from an online news report that Ms. Odunsi had passed away and that Chester Grant had been hospitalized. As of now, we have not received any direct updates from the police. The information available to us has come primarily from media coverage.

As this remains an active and ongoing investigation, the Houston Police Department has not released specific findings to us, and we do not have confirmed details about the events that occurred from the police, only what we have seen in the news.

Both Ms. Odunsi and Chester Grant had background checks performed on them by SafeRent Solutions. Nothing in the results showed any indication that Chester Grant had any previous issues or a history of violence.

We are fully cooperating with both the victim's family and law enforcement and remain committed to supporting the investigation in any way we can. Our deepest condolences go out to all those affected by this tragic event."

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