13 Investigates: Newly released texts, emails reveal little about UH rape suspect's release
HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- For months, our 13 Investigates team has been trying to learn more about the police response to a violent sexual assault on the University of Houston's campus in February.
Harris County court records show the victim immediately reported the assault to UH's police department on Feb. 7 and went to the hospital that night, where DNA swabs were collected.
In the following hours, the suspect, Eric Brown, 40, was located and taken into custody, but he was released the next day with no charges for the sexual assault and robbery of the then-21-year-old UH student.
Brown was charged five days later. He wasn't located again and in custody until 11 days after the alleged sexual assault, which occurred while the victim was getting ready for a sorority event, according to court records.
RELATED: Sexual assault suspect captured more than a week after UH student raped, police say
At the time, UH blamed the Harris County District's Attorney's Office and the DA's office said UHPD dropped the ball.
13 Investigates wanted to cut through the finger-pointing and learn more about what university police were talking about in those early stages when Brown was released, so we started making open records requests.
ABC13 sent public information requests for emails and text messages from 14 members of the UH police department, including the police chief and some of the officers who initially responded to the Feb. 7 sexual assault. We also wanted to know who the responding officers were calling in the days after the attack.
When we made our request in February, the suspect still hadn't been arrested. We didn't receive the documents we asked UH for until last week.
Under the Texas Public Information Act, governmental agencies like UH can ask a requestor to clarify or narrow their request or they can ask the Texas Attorney General for a ruling on if they can withhold the information. UH did both for our requests.
Despite asking for emails and text messages mentioning specific keywords and a short date range, UH asked 13 Investigates "if you would be willing to narrow the scope of your request to the basic front page information of the police report involving the sexual assault in the University garage."
That report likely would give us the basics of the incident, including the date, time, location, and a brief description of what happened. But, it wasn't even remotely what we asked for, so we declined.
UH then sent our request to the AG's office asking to withhold everything we requested, citing "release of the information would interfere with the detection, investigation or prosecution of a crime."
13 Investigates submitted our own comments to the AG, advocating for transparency and the release of the information we requested. We pointed out that the University asked us to accept documents that were not even what we asked for in an effort to close out our request.
The AG agreed that the university was asking for a ruling on information that we did not even ask for.
"We note the submitted incident report is not responsive to the present requests for information because it does not consist of the requested information. Therefore, because this situation falls outside of the Act and beyond the scope of this office's authority to render a decision, we consider this matter closed," the AG's office said in its ruling on May 19, 2025.
When we finally received the information we requested from UH, we expected several pieces of correspondence between university police and administrators given the magnitude of what UH has called a "brutal and vicious rape."
We received a two text messages, nine emails, and call logs for four officers that show a handful of calls made in the days after the incident.
The emails include some media requests for a statement, a concerned parent requesting more police on staff and one email on Feb. 12 saying Brown has two active warrants in Harris County, but nothing that pointed to why he was released or where that potentially dangerous breakdown happened.
Despite concerns about how our request was handled, UH told 13 Investigates in a statement that it complied with the Texas Public information Act.
"Our responses are based on a good-faith interpretation of each request, and we provided all responsive records as required by law," UH said in a statement to 13 Investigates. "It is routine for law enforcement agencies to conduct in-person briefings or use other methods of communication when managing active investigations or case-sensitive matters to preserve the confidentiality and integrity of an ongoing investigation."
Brown is still in Harris County Jail. Last month, a motion was filed by Brown's attorneys, asking for him to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
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