Murdered La Grange Woman Dreamed of Being a Teacher

Investigators have not yet released the name of the woman murdered in La Grange on Saturday, but the victim’s mother, Michelle Phillips, identified her slain daughter as 20-year-old Ezrianna Poncik of La Grange.

“It’s like a nightmare I can’t wake up from,” Phillips told the Record on Tuesday.

Poncik was found dead in her home at the Green Acres Apartments shortly after 2 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 4. The Fayette County Sheriff’s Office charged 28-year-old Denzale Jydon Myles of La Grange for the murder of Poncik. Myles remains behind bars at the Dan R. Beck Justice Center in La Grange with bond set at $500,000.

Phillips said her daughter was enrolled in Blinn College this fall. She wanted to become a special education teacher, Phillips said. The mother and daughter lived in separate apartments at Green Acres on SH 159 north of La Grange. Poncik was found dead at the apartments just after 2 p.m. on Sept. 4, according to a statement from the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office. The manner of her death has not been released.

“She didn’t have any children yet, but she had two dogs, two Chihuahuas, and she loved them very much,” Phillips said. “Her father took one of the dogs and I took the other. It keeps running away to my daughter’s apartment, but she isn’t there anymore.”

Phillips said Poncik worked at the Shell convenience store in Smithville. Before that, she worked for about a year at the Whataburger in La Grange.

Poncik leaves behind her mother, father and two sisters. Funeral arrangements have been entrusted to Phillips and Luckey Funeral Home in Giddings. A Go Fund Me page has been set up to help the family with funeral costs: https://gofund.me/bd933e71. A Facebook fundraiser page has also been set up: https://bit.ly/2X9AEqZ.