Prosecutors said Derek Lennon Bradley tried to remove location evidence after Casie Lynn Graves was found dead near railroad tracks.
ORANGE, Texas — A truck, a short video timeline and a request to remove GPS equipment helped prosecutors win a murder conviction against Derek Lennon Bradley in the strangulation death of Casie Lynn Graves in Orange County.
Bradley, 47, was sentenced to 30 years in prison after jurors found him guilty May 5. Graves, 38, was the mother of four and shared two children with Bradley. Her body was discovered Sept. 16, 2023, near railroad tracks by the former International Paper facility on Highway 87. Prosecutors said the evidence did not start with a confession. It started with movement, timing and a later effort to make a vehicle less traceable.
The key timeline began just after midnight. Prosecutors said surveillance video showed Bradley’s truck leaving his residence around 12:30 a.m. on the day Graves’ body was found. The truck traveled toward the area near the railroad tracks, then returned to Bradley’s home around 12:57 a.m. That left a window of less than half an hour. District Attorney Krispen Winfree said the video gave investigators a reason to focus on the truck, the route and what evidence the vehicle might still hold after Graves was found hours later.
Authorities said the body was found in the afternoon, when an employee arrived for work near the industrial site. Deputies and investigators with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office responded shortly before 3:45 p.m. and identified the victim as Graves. A medical examiner ruled the cause of death as strangulation. That finding turned the case from a death investigation into a homicide investigation. The place where Graves was found also mattered because it was near rail tracks and outside the normal path of family life, prosecutors said.
Investigators then learned about a second fact tied to the truck. Bradley had contacted a mechanic and asked to have the GPS function removed from the vehicle, prosecutors said. The state treated that request as evidence that Bradley knew location data could matter. It also gave investigators another basis to seek warrants. Authorities obtained search warrants for Bradley’s home and vehicle after reviewing the video, conducting witness interviews and following up on the mechanic information. Evidence recovered in those searches was later shown to the jury.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office led the investigation, with help from the Texas Rangers. Assistant District Attorney Bard Anderson prosecuted the case, and the district attorney’s office victim assistance coordinator also assisted. Prosecutors said the proof was layered. The autopsy explained how Graves died. The discovery location showed where her body had been left. The surveillance video showed the truck’s movement. Witnesses added context. The GPS request, prosecutors argued, showed an effort to remove evidence rather than an innocent repair.
Bradley was not arrested immediately after the body was found. Investigators continued building the case through the end of 2023 and into 2024. A grand jury heard evidence in September 2024 and returned a murder indictment. Orange County deputies arrested Bradley the next day. At the time of the arrest, Graves’ family said the charge brought some movement after a long wait, but not peace. Her mother, Vickie Graves, said she felt empty, broken and sad. Her brother said the family was still seeking justice.
The trial began in late April 2026. Jurors heard testimony over six days before returning a guilty verdict. Public reports from inside the trial said Bradley sat beside his attorney as testimony began. The judge expected the trial to last most of the week, and prosecutors presented the case through investigators and witnesses. Some details remain outside the public record, including the complete contents of the search warrants and the defense’s full explanation for the truck movements. No public report reviewed after sentencing said Bradley testified.
Graves’ relationship with Bradley gave the case its family setting. The two had been together for several years and shared two children. Graves also had two other children, and local reports said her two youngest girls were younger than 6 when she died. Family members described her as warm and close to her children. Prosecutors did not publicly release a detailed motive in the reports reviewed, and authorities did not say that a single event immediately before the killing explained why Graves was strangled. The punishment phase moved quickly after the guilty verdict. Jurors sentenced Bradley to 30 years in the Texas prison system. Prosecutors had said he faced a far longer possible sentence, up to life in prison. The sentence gave the case a final trial outcome but did not make every investigative detail public. It confirmed that the jury accepted the state’s account that Bradley killed Graves and tried to hide his involvement afterward.
The GPS issue became the most unusual public detail of the prosecution. Many murder cases turn on weapons, fingerprints or eyewitnesses. In this case, prosecutors pointed to a vehicle’s movements and a later effort to remove a location system. The mechanic did not solve the case alone. But the request, paired with video and witness statements, helped investigators persuade a judge to authorize searches and helped prosecutors explain Bradley’s conduct to jurors.
Bradley remained convicted and sentenced as of May 27, 2026. The case’s next public stage would be any post-trial filing, appeal notice or prison record reflecting his transfer into state custody.
Author note: Last updated May 27, 2026.