In a well-worn tale of Colonial America, Pocahontas was the heroic Native American dame who saved the life of an English newcomer.
But Houston police say an exotic dancer using that name has admitted serving as bait to lure two men into robberies where both were shot and one was killed, court records allege.
Luerissie Ashley Ross, 20, has been charged with capital murder in the February shooting death of Budrohoe Briscoe near a north Houston apartment complex. A warrant for her arrest was issued Thursday. She had not been apprehended by late Monday.
Ross already is out on $50,000 bail in connection with a December robbery that wounded another man at his northwest Houston apartment.
A fatal meeting
According to Harris County court records, Briscoe picked up a cousin from the airport, then drove to the rear of an apartment complex in the 2300 block of West Tidwell to pick up "Pocahontas." She got into the car around 2 a.m. on Feb. 17.
Moments later, her cellphone rang.
"She told the person on the other end (of the line) something like, 'Yes, there are two of them,' " according to the criminal complaint. Then, Ross asked Briscoe to return to the complex so she could retrieve her phone charger.
A short time after the trio arrived and the woman exited the vehicle, Briscoe received a call asking him "to come meet 'Pocahontas.' " As he walked into a courtyard where the woman was standing, two men robbed and shot him.
Briscoe died Feb. 29.
Houston Police Department officers got a break in the case when one of the man's relatives told police that "Pocahontas" was an exotic dancer at the Ice Cream Castle nightclub who might have texted photographs of herself to Briscoe. Police recovered the digital images.
Link revealed
The investigation also revealed a link between Ross and a Jan. 20 aggravated robbery in the same complex. On Monday, few details were available about that incident.
In a March 20 interview with HPD investigators, Ross admitted she was present when Briscoe was shot and "that she set the complainant up to be robbed by her actions."
A week later, she was arrested on one count of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon related to an earlier non-fatal incident.
In that Dec. 30 shooting, Ross met a man at his apartment in the 6000 block of Hollister intending to rob him. Court documents say she called a man described as her boyfriend and told him when to show up. The boyfriend, identified as Kevin Jamon Johnson, shot the resident - who survived.
Johnson, 22, has been charged with aggravated robbery in that incident, but had not been taken into custody late Monday.
Ross, who also admitted setting up that robbery, has been free on bail since April 29, court records showed.
