Finding Audrii: A story of tragic loss and lasting legacy

LIVINGSTON, Texas – On an unusually warm February day, in the small town of Livingston, Texas, Audrii Cunningham, an 11-year-old girl whose only fault was being too kind, was kidnapped and brutally murdered by a man who entered her life just a few years prior.

Audrii was supposed to take the bus to school on the morning of February 15, 2024. However, she never made it to the bus stop, prompting an AMBER Alert and a desperate search to bring her home.

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For the next five days, hundreds of law enforcement officers and search crews would work nearly non-stop to try and find the 11-year-old girl from Livington, Texas.

Audrii’s story resonated with people far and wide, capturing attention from people around the country.

It wasn’t until that fifth day of searching that Audrii’s body was found weighted down in the Trinity River, just south of the Lake Livingston Dam.

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The sole suspect - Don Steven McDougal — a man Audrii’s grandparents took in to help start a new life, allowing him to live in a trailer in the backyard.

This is the story of Audrii Cunningham, a bright life, brutally murdered by a man who Audrii and her family thought was trying to straighten out his life.

Who Was Audrii Cunningham

To know Audrii Cunningham is to know the impact the young girl had on the lives around her.

There aren’t many 11-year-olds who truly affect a community quite like Audrii did for the small, close-knit town of Livingston. Audrii was a beacon of joy and innocence.

“She was such a happy child,” said Audrii’s grandfather, Philip Munsch. “Audrii was our little angel, as you can see in the picture. She’s a beautiful, young lady.”

Audrii lived with her grandparents as her father worked offshore for periods of time.

“She was my buddy,” her grandmother, Tabitha Munsch, said. “We loved dealing with all the animals, we’re both avid animal lovers trying to help with anything. She just wanted to help.”

Her family described Audrii as a nonjudgmental and kind-hearted child who brought joy to those around her.

“That child had a sense of humor. Her birthday party, her last one, she just decided to break out in some random, goofy dance just because that was her,” Tabitha said. “To make someone laugh.”

Joshua Cunningham, Audrii’s father, has never openly spoken about his daughter’s disappearance and death—until now.

“She was like my first little girl. You know, first child,” Cunningham said in an exclusive interview with KPRC 2′s Gage Goulding. “I just turned 18, so my entire adult life has been being a father. And I’m glad that I was given that opportunity.”

The Search For Audrii

It didn’t take long for Audrii’s family to realize she was missing.

She never got off the school bus, sparking even more questions as to where she went.

By dinner time, her family had officially reported her missing to law enforcement. An AMBER Alert was issued for Audrii just before 10 p.m.

For two days, local law enforcement agencies worked alongside Texas Rangers searching for Audrii.

It’s after they exhausted resources that they called in Texas EquuSearch, a Houston-area volunteer search and recovery organization that’s helped recover the remains of more than 400 people in 42 states and 11 counties, to help find Audrii.

At the head of Texas EquuSearch is Tim Miller, a man who knows the feeling of losing a loved one.

Miller started TexasEquuSearch after his then 16-year-old daughter, Laura Miller, was kidnapped and murdered in 1984.

“I was actually at my office and I’ve kind of following the case a little bit and everything,” Miller said. “And then and now we got the call and they just wanted foot searches and stuff. And I brought my boat.”

For the first time since Audrii was found, Miller took KPRC 2′s Gage Goulding and our cameras to the exact spot where he found her body.

“Early on when I first got here, I said, ‘I can guarantee one thing,’” Miller said. “‘Audrii is in a place that she did not choose to be in. Somebody else made a choice,’”

She was found in the river down a steep hillside underneath a trail bridge that spans the Trinity River a few miles south of the Lake Livingston Dam.

Gage Goulding: “Have you been back here since Audrii was found?”

Tim Miller: “I came back here one time. One time and looked at it.”

Texas Rangers didn’t initially believe that Audrii was in the water under the train bridge.

Something told Miller that she was.

Gage Goulding: “What told you inside, ‘I got to. I got to search right here.’ What was calling you here?”

Tim Miller: “I know a Texas Ranger actually brought the suspect down here one time after these clothes were found and it was parked over by the boat ramp. And that ranger said, ‘Did you put her in this water?’ And he said, ‘Well, she might be there.’”

Gage Goulding: “He said that?”

Tim Miller: “Yeah. He said, well, ‘She might be there.’ He’s kind of halfway playing games and stuff.”

It’s the same area where some items known to belong to the sole suspect in the case, Don Steven McDougal, were found scattered around. Investigators also found Audrii’s clothes here, too.

“At that moment when the clothes were found, we knew something had happened to her, of course, but we always wondering if he just brought her out here and raped her and threw her clothes,” Miller said. “But how those clothes were tied up in that tent and stuff, it was like, you know, what in the hell is this all about?”

Miller asked the lead investigators to keep searching the water using his boat, which is outfitted with a sonar to scan the bottom of the river.

“I spent a lot of time here,” Miller said. “I think what we was doing, all that stuff way down the river and everything and at the end of the day. It was like, ‘My God, is this one of them that’s never going to be found? She’s never going to be found.’ And then I just remembered and I said ‘I’m gonna start at point A again. I must start there again.’”

Gage Goulding: “What do you remember most about the effort trying to find Audrii being in this area?”

Tim Miller: “Well, we didn’t start out in this area, but then we knew that he came over here. And so then our people started to searching here. And then they found a tent that was down by the water that was tied up. And then there was some of Audrii’s clothes. And and then was it being this isolated and everything out here? It was like, my God, He threw her in the water. He threw her in the water. Audrii didn’t make this choice. She didn’t choose to come down here and jump in this damn water. She didn’t choose the things that happened to her. And so. Think that since she didn’t have a voice for all this and we became, we all became the parents and the voice and we chose not to quit. Somebody else chose to do something. We chose not to quit.”

Finding Audrii

After days of searching up and down the Trinity River and virtually scouring the entire area of the Lake Livingston Dam, Tim Miller was focused on that one spot underneath the train bridge.

The water was high, murky, and rushing thanks to Mother Nature’s recent rainfall.

It’s then, after scanning the same area with sonar dozens of times, he finally saw something. With permission from Audrii’s family, these sonar images were shared with KPRC 2 by Texas EquuSearch.

“When I got that one image, it’s like, ‘Oh my God, that’s her. That is her,’” Miller said. “And I showed that to some of the divers, that image, and they said ‘No, no.’ And I got with the Texas Rangers, I showed them, I said, ‘Listen, I’m positive. I do enough of this sonar, I’m positive that is our little girl right there.’ That Monday, they dove on it and couldn’t get to it.”

The river current was too strong to dive down to reach what appeared to be Audrii’s body.

That’s when the decision was made to close the Lake Livingston Dam, stopping the flow of water down the Trinity River, creating a window to dive down to see if what Miller was seeing on his sonar truly was Audrii Cunningham.

“It was the best choice they ever made,” Miller said. “So, the water went down. And then on Tuesday, they went and dove [in] and they located her. I was in a hospital and when I got the call that that they found her, and it was like, ‘Yes.’”

But what he was told next shocked not only him but Audrii’s family and the entire Livingston community. The person who put Audrii there, tied her down with weights so she wouldn’t be found.

“The last thing I thought was that she was going to be tied up and weighted down,” Miller said. “I never, ever expected that.”

The Man Who Killed Audrii

Throughout the entirety of the search, investigators only identified one suspect: Don Steven McDougal.

He was a family friend, someone who Audrii’s grandparents let live in a trailer behind their home.

“He had been in prison and we knew all about that,” said Audrii’s grandfather, Philip. “And we checked the registry. There was nothing there. So we agreed to help him. And then, you know, two years later, this tragedy happens. We don’t understand it because Audrii offered him nothing but, but kindness.”

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For two years, McDougal lived behind the home of the family who thought they were giving him a new lease on life and the opportunity to start over.

Gage Goulding: “It’s probably the most difficult thing to comprehend.”

Philip Munsch: “Yes.”

Tabitha Munsch: “She didn’t care what you look like. You could have tattoos. You could be scary. You and I could be scared to death of somebody. And she would walk up and say, ‘Hi, I’m Audrii. How are you?’ She was nonjudgmental. You know, we’re we’re raised into fearing a certain look. The thing is, everybody looks at the exterior of somebody and makes a judgment. And I’m guilty, too. I’m guilty, too. And but she didn’t.”

Joshua Cunningham: “I don’t know how to describe it. You know, sometimes it’s, you know, I still have my son, so I had to be strong and I have to keep going and act like nothing’s even happening. And at the same time, my whole world is completely different. Some days it feels like everything’s moving way too fast, and other days everything’s just too slow and nothing’s ever right.”

Philip Munsch: “She was just full of spirit. And that that’s probably the biggest tragedy, is that her light she had around her is gone.”

McDougal was arrested on a separate case why the search for Audrii was ongoing.

After discovering her body, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office formally filed charges of Capital Murder against McDougal for killing Audrii Cunningham.

Just a month before the one-year anniversary of Audrii’s disappearance, McDougal accepted a plea deal to spend the rest of life in prison, without the opportunity for parole.

RELATED: ‘Rot in hell:’ Audrii Cunningham’s family shares incendiary words to killer before accepting plea deal

This is the first time he admitted to kidnapping and killing Audrii Cunningham.

It was also the first time he was in the same room as Audrii’s family since he killed the 11-year-old girl who entrusted him.

“It’s simple. He’s a he’s a child killer,” said Audrii’s father, Joshua. “He is a coward. That’s why he can only look at his feet. He can’t look at himself. He can’t look at anybody else. He’s a coward. He knows he’s a coward.”

McDougal was booked into a state detention facility, where these new mugshots were taken.

“You know, on a person like that. I don’t think there’s any words that could be said to a person like that that would even register in their head,” Tim Miller said. “So, you know, the best thing is just walk away and keep your mouth shut, because you can’t say, ‘Man, why did you do this?’ And everybody, including me, we look for, we got all the questions and we want an answer. But you know what? There’s not one answer we could ever get that’s going to be satisfying. They tell everyone, ‘I have said the truth.’ It still doesn’t make any sense.”

Tim knows this from personal experience.

It’s that pain that pushes him to help other families. And it’s his daughter who he often finds himself thinking of and thanking when he’s finally able to bring closure to a family.

“I didn’t pick Texas EquuSearch,” he said. “I think they picked me because I remember when my daughter, Laura disappeared, and the police said she was a runaway and we could get no help. None. Zero, zero. And going through 17 months before her body was accidentally found. And I remember every minute of that 17 months of helplessness and hopelessness and fear. You know, after the last body was found, I just made a promise to God, Laura, that I could never leave a family alone. And because I know it felt like it.”

“That was chapter one,” added Philip Munsch. “Chapter two, just closed recently when, and I’m not going to use his name, the perpetrator. He pled guilty and agreed to life in prison with without the possibility of parole or appeal. So, he’s taken responsibility for it. But the hurt doesn’t go away. It’s going to take us a while to forgive him.”

Creating Audrii’s Law

Audrii’s tragic story did not end with her discovery.

Her family and community were determined to ensure her legacy would bring about meaningful change.

“It is about making sure that just doesn’t happen again,” Audrii’s father, Joshua said.

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The loophole that allowed McDougal to avoid registering as a sex offender became a focal point for legislative action.

In 2007, McDougal was charged with indecency with a child. However, McDougal pleaded down to the charge, meaning he never was required to register as a sex offender.

Audrii’s family says they ran McDougal’s name through the sex offender registry, thinking they were protecting their family.

They didn’t know about McDougal’s plea deal.

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In response, Audrii’s family, along with community members, established a nonprofit called Justice for Audrii. Their goal was to close legal loopholes and protect other children from similar fates.

“We’ve we’re blessed to meet Andy Kahn with CrimeStoppers and he said he would love to help us bring to the Texas legislature Audrii’s Law, which is designed to help close the loophole that we missed,” Munsch said. “It’s a loophole that doesn’t require sexual offenders who plea bargained down to a lesser charge to have to register in the sex offender program. If we can help save one child, it’s worth it.”

Officially known as HB 2000, the bill was filed by Rep. Trent Ashby in January for the 2025 Texas Legislative regular session.

The proposed “Audrii’s Law” aims to ensure that offenders with a sexual element in their crimes are required to register as sex offenders.

Currently, if an offender pleads down to a lesser charge, there’s no requirement in the law to register as a sex offender.

“Basically, the gist of the bill is anyone that’s convicted of an offense in which there’s a sexual element like a child grooming, which is what State Representative Ashby has filed will be now required to register as a sex offender,” said Andy Kahn, the Director of Victim Services and Advocacy for Crime Stoppers of Houston. “The important thing is what can we do to prevent this from happening in the future and keep more Audrii Cunninghams from happening and passing this law, Audrii’s Law, will do that.”

You might be sitting there scratching your head as your read this wondering: ‘Why isn’t this a thing already.’

You’re not alone.

“It should have been common sense,” Joshua said. “This shouldn’t, you know, even if it’s enticing, enticing a child or grooming a child, you are a sexual predator and you should be on that list.”

An identical bill, Senate Bill 1193, was filed by Texas Sen. Robert Nichols (R- TX 3).

By requiring offenders to register, the bill enhances the ability of families and communities to protect themselves.

The registry serves as a tool for parents and guardians to stay informed about individuals who may pose a threat to their children. Additionally, it aids law enforcement in monitoring offenders and preventing future crimes.

Audrii’s Law was filed on January 22, just as the 89th Legislature’s regular session was getting underway.

The regular session runs from January 14 through June 2.

If approved and signed by the Governor, the law would take effect on September 1, 2025.

But Audrii’s family isn’t stopping there.

Gage Goulding: “The goal is for Audrii’s Law, not just to be here in Texas. You want to take it across the country?”

Philip Munsch: “Once we have it passed in Texas, we want to take a look at other states to see if there is a deficiency there. I don’t know how the sex offender registry works across the country yet. If there’s any other states that have loopholes, we would be willing to do work through crime stoppers to get laws passed in those states.

Gage Goulding: “As a parent, you can’t be more proud of what you’re what your child does and what they achieve in life.”

Joshua Cunningham: “I’ve been incredibly proud of my daughter.”

A Lasting Legacy

Audrii’s story was seen around the nation and around the globe.

Social media played a big role in Audrii’s story. It enabled people far and wide to be connected to the search for the young girl from Livingston.

“It’s a feeling you can’t match. There’s no words, you know,” said Audrii’s grandmother, Tabita, said. “It shows that God’s still out there and a lot of people. It shows that people still care for you. It shows that every bit of what Audrii stood for still in this world. Her legacy began the day this community pulled together.”

“Also, we were looking at the community. It’s about healing for our community,” Philip added.

If you take a walk at the boat ramp near where Audrii’s body was found, you can’t make it very far without being reminded of the young girl’s life.

Pillars that hold up U.S. 59 overhead are painted purple, Audrii’s favorite color.

Messages of love, support and sadness are written on the concrete pylons while crosses and flowers litter the ground.

Her story undoubtedly impacted the lives of many. For them, this is a place to come to be at peace and pay respect to Audrii.

For Tim Miller, coming here has a different meaning.

It’s a place where he can come and say, ‘Thank you’ to the one person who helped bring Audrii home: his daughter Laura.

“When Audrii’s body was actually located. I said, ‘Thank you, Laura. Thank you, Laura.’ Because if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be for her disappearance and her death, I sure as hell will be doing this. So, again, I think God had a different plan for me than what I had. And I think about Laura every day, and I miss her and nobody will replace her. Because of that, we’re just part of Finding Audrii.”