In Travis County, the land of bonded-out murder suspects, a case recently resurfaced that had previously evaded my eye, one where a suspect managed to avoid murder charges through sheer sloth and incompetence from the Travis County DA’s office.
AUSTIN MAN beat a woman to death, left her body under a tarp in his yard for two days, then buried her in a backyard burn pit — and never faced a single day in court for the murder, because Travis County prosecutors missed the deadline to indict him.
Ad now he’ll be released from prison in March, according to Texas prison records.
The victim was Natalie Renee Pearce, a 36-year-old caregiver who worked with adults with developmental disabilities and helped run a horse therapy program.
Peter Perius picked her up near Rundberg Lane and brought her home to get high on meth. He texted his nephew afterward that he didn’t want to spend the second half of his life in prison.
He apparently is getting his wish and will be a free man soon.
Perius was charged with murder, bond set at $500,000. Then the case sat. In February 2024, a judge dismissed the murder charge because prosecutors failed to meet deadlines.
What was left was tampering with a corpse. He pleaded guilty in December 2024, but two enhancements were abandoned, and he got 10 years with 766 days already credited.
Prosecutors could have put him away before he killed Natalie. Two months before he picked her up, prosecutors had declined to file a felony meth possession case against him. He had 18 Travis County cases already — including a child/elderly/disabled injury charge, three family violence assaults in a single year, an indecent exposure, a revoked probation, a string of DWIs.
Now Natalie Pearce is dead and her killer is set to be a free man soon because Austin’s prosecutors failed to do their job.
That’s from the Austin Justice Twitter account, but news stories corroborate all the relevant details. “A murder charge that Perius previously faced was dismissed due to the Travis County District Attorney’s Office failing to meet the indictment deadline.” Somehow this case of massive incompetence got relegated to half a sentence at the end of paragraph five.
Under Soros-backed DA Jose Garza, Travis County’s DA office has put a revolving door on the jailhouse to allow repeat offenders back out on the streets to continue victimizing law-abiding citizens.
Usually murder cases are treated with a fair degree of seriousness in a competent DA’s office (at least outside of no-witness drug gang shootings). They’re high profile cases that receive special attention, but evidently not in Travis County. One wonders whether Garza’s staff let Perius walk out of sheer incompetence, or an ideological belief that no one should spend time in jail for committing a crime against anyone, for anything, ever.
Tags: Austin, Crime, Democrats, George Soros, Jose Garza, murder, Natalie Renee Pearce, Peter Perius, Social Justice Warriors, Travis County