Slain deputy constable feared former officer he had investigated, source says

BAYTOWN, Texas – Five days before he was slain, Clint Greenwood told officials in the county attorney’s office that he believed a man he’d helped send to jail was a threat to him and his family.

The man he was talking about is currently a prisoner in the Harris County Jail, Eric Baumgart, a former investigator for the Harris County Public Defender’s Office and a reserve officer with a Liberty County police agency.

Greenwood help convict him of tampering with a government document and with providing private security services without a license in 2014.

Baumgart, 47, was sentenced to 90 days in jail and five years of probation. He began serving his sentence in January.

In an interview Tuesday afternoon at the jail, Baumgart said county detectives searched his belongings on Monday, following Greenwood's death, but he says they still haven’t spoken to him.

Last January, a source close to the murder investigation said Baumgart submitted a freedom of information request from jail asking for Greenwood’s pay records.

Greenwood was contacted by the county attorney’s office, and asked that the records not be released.

Greenwood sent another email on March 30 saying he believed Baumgart was a threat to him and his family, according to the source.

On Tuesday, Baumgart attributed that statement to what he calls a vendetta Greenwood waged against him after Baumgart helped a friend file a civil rights lawsuit against the county in 2012.

He says Greenwood ruined his career and put him in jail. He said he considered Greenwood a threat to him.

During the election last fall, Baumgart ran an ad accusing Greenwood's boss at the time, District Attorney Devon Anderson, of corruption -- naming Greenwood in the ad -- among others.

When asked if he wanted Clint Greenwood dead -- or had anything to do with his murder, Baumgart said, “Of course not.”

He says he expects investigators will be talking to others who were involved in the lawsuit with him.

Police investigating Greenwood’s death have not named Baumgart, or anyone else, as a suspect in the case.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story reported that Baumgart had been questioned in connection with Greenwood's homicide, and that Baumgart worked as a reserve deputy at the Liberty County Sheriff's Office. The corrected version of the story is above.