State lawmakers pass 'Audrii's Law' bill that closes sex offender registry loophole

LIVINGSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- The fate of Audrii's Law now lies with Governor Greg Abbott after state lawmakers passed it unanimously on Friday.

HB 2000 is named in honor of Audrii Cunningham, the 11-year-old Livingston girl who was bludgeoned to death in February 2024.

The bill aims to close a loophole that allowed Audrii's killer to avoid registering as a sex offender after a prior conviction.

"She's gonna help somebody," Audrii's great uncle, Bobby Cedars, said. "She's gonna save lives. She'd be extremely happy with that."

Cedars said he helped raise Audrii until the age of five and remained close in the years following.

"I taught her lots of things. Taught her how to drive, of course, here in the neighborhood," Cedars said.

He said he got an uneasy feeling about Steven McDougal, a friend of Audrii's father, when he first met him a week before Audrii's murder.

"He just seemed kind of weird," Cedars said.

Yet had anyone checked up on McDougal, they wouldn't have found him on the sex offender registry.

This, despite what McDougal did to Carissa Davis in 2007, when she was 10 years old.

"Tried to take down my pants, and I immediately jumped," Davis told Eyewitness News last year.

McDougal took a deal and pleaded no contest to enticing a child with intent to commit a felony.

His crime would have also met the criteria for child grooming, a new offense that wasn't added to the Texas criminal code until 2023.

But under current state law, neither of those crimes require the perpetrators to register as sex offenders.

"I was furious. I was really, really mad about that 'cause I was like, 'Are you serious?' You know?" Cedars said.

Audrii's Law would add convicted child groomers to the sex offender registry, but only for convictions after Sept. 1, when the law would take effect.

With the bill now in the governor's hands, Cedars hopes it isn't long before it's law.

"That's awesome. That's amazing. Hopefully, it'll help somebody else. Save them the pain and trouble that we've been through," Cedars said.

Davis agrees, telling Eyewitness News in a statement: "What's done is done, but if we can put these monsters away without a loophole and save another child, I'm all for it. We need Audrii's Law."

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