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Rayshard Scott, 5, was killed in an August 2022 shooting at his Fort Worth home. He had just started kindergarten and loved “Sonic the Hedgehog.” He and his 17-year-old cousin, Jamarrien Monroe (right), were shot to death. One defendant was found guilty and another defendant is on trial this week for the second time after a jury previously could not reach a verdict.
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After a jury was unable to reach a verdict in about 18 hours of deliberation in July, prosecutors in Tarrant County are this week retrying a capital murder case in which the defendant is accused of firing 16 rounds from an AK-style pistol into the garage of a house in far northwest Fort Worth, killing two people, including a 5-year-old.
The state’s case against Anthony Bell-Johnson will be built on little beyond grainy surveillance video, detectives’ speculation and questionable cellphone data, the defense forecast to the jury on Tuesday.
“Not one single civilian,” will testify to connect Bell-Johnson to the 2022 killings, defense attorney Gary Smart told the jury in Criminal District Court No. 2 in his opening statement.
Assistant District Attorney Melinda Hogan in the state’s opening statement said Bell-Johnson fired 7.62mm bullets into the garage and has a tattoo to reference the ammunition.
“He does not have 7.62 tattooed on his head,” Smart responded when it was his turn to address the jury. “He has .62 on his head.”
Fifteen ejected cartridge casings were left in the street when, prosecutors argue, Bell-Johnson stopped his fusillade. Rayshard Scott, 5, and the little boy’s cousin, 17-year-old Jamarrien Monroe, were shot to death.
Monroe, Rayshard and three other children were in the garage at a house in the 8500 block of Steel Dust Drive at the time of the shooting on Aug. 28, 2022. The garage door was mostly up. Jamarrien Monroe’s 18-month-old son, Jhacari Monroe, was grazed in the leg.
Jamarrien Monroe was the target, according to authorities. Bell-Johnson and a second shooter, Jay Nixon-Clark, believed that associates of Monroe had fired bullets at a house in which Bell-Johnson’s relatives lived, Fort Worth Police Department homicide detectives concluded.
With Smart, defense attorney Kevin Rousseau represents Bell-Johnson, who is known as One Leg. He uses a prosthetic limb. He lost his leg in a train accident when he was a child.
A jury in January 2025 found Nixon-Clark guilty of capital murder. Bell-Johnson and Nixon-Clark were indicted under a statute that alleges that they intentionally or knowingly caused the death of multiple people at the same time.
Hogan represents the state in the case with Assistant District Attorney Bill Vassar.
On the day of the shooting, Bell-Johnson was 21. Nixon-Clark, who was 16, was certified to be tried as an adult after the case was first filed in a juvenile court. Nixon-Clark will serve 40 years in prison before he is eligible for parole.
In an interview with homicide detectives, Nixon-Clark admitted firing a white Kriss Vector, a unique semiautomatic gun, once. He was then unable to clear the jammed weapon and could not fire again.
Bell-Johnson’s first trial was held in Tarrant County’s auxiliary court known as the In Custody Court.
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Emerson Clarridge
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