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A woman was stabbed to death at a house in far north Fort Worth on Friday night, and police said the victim’s son is the suspect.
Officers were called just before 9 p.m. to a home in the 4800 block of Cargill Circle, where they found the homicide victim, police said in a news release. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the victim as 51-year-old Mirlande Ciprien.
The preliminary investigation found that a domestic altercation between the mother and her adult son occurred at the house, police said.
Investigators found the suspect nearby and arrested him. He was taken to a hospital to be treated for a possibly self-inflicted wound, police said.
Jail records identify the suspect as 21-year-old Malachyah Ciprien. He was booked in the Tarrant County Jail on Saturday and faces a murder charge. Bond has not been set, and it’s unclear whether he has a defense attorney to represent him in the case.
This story was originally published February 14, 2026 at 2:33 AM.
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Star-Telegram illustration/Ricky Moon photo
Fort Worth police have arrested a second suspect in the late-night murder of a 22-year-old man on Jan. 8, according to online jail records.
Joe Lopez, 17, was arrested Tuesday and charged with murder in the death of Asael Ledesma, according to jail records. Police previously arrested 17-year-old Jaime Perez in the case.
Officers were called to the area of a home in the 2200 block of David Drive, near Springdale Park, at about 11:40 p.m., the Star-Telegram initially reported. They found Ledesma in a vehicle; he had been shot multiple times. He died at the scene.
Neighbors told police they found the vehicle riddled with bullets after hearing gunshots outside, according to Star-Telegram media partner WFAA-TV.
Family and friends described Ledesma as having “one of the biggest and purest hearts a person could have,” according to a GoFundMe for his family.
“There aren’t words to describe the pain, sadness and emptiness that our family is feeling,” his family wrote in Spanish on the GoFundMe. “Losing Asael … has been one of the most devastating experiences we’ve ever lived through.”
Lillie Davidson is a breaking news reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. She graduated from TCU in 2025 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, is fluent in Spanish, and can complete a crossword in five minutes.
Rayshard Scott, 5, had just started kindergarten and loved “Sonic the Hedgehog.” He and his 17-year-old cousin, Jamarrien Monroe (right), were shot to death outside their home in northwest Fort Worth in 2022.
Contributed
The diameter of the bullet that shredded through Rayshard Scott’s body was 7.62 millimeters. It took a path through two of his ribs, his kidneys, adrenal glands, vertebral bones and the edge of his liver.
When he died, Rayshard, who was 5 years old, stood 3 feet 8 inches tall and weighed 40 pounds. He was in kindergarten, a Spider-Man fan.
His 17-year-old cousin, Jamarrien Monroe, was with Rayshard in a garage that is attached to a house in a far northwest Fort Worth subdivision when Jamarrien, too, was shot in the torso.
The teenager’s abdomen flooded with one and a half liters of blood before he died. His 18-month-old son, Jhacari Monroe, was grazed in the leg.
Two other children, 14 and 8, were also in the garage, with its door mostly raised, in the Quarter Horse Estates neighborhood near Saginaw.
The sun baked the driveway and street from which two shooters opened fire on a Sunday in August 2022.
The assailants, prosecutors allege, arrived in a sport utility vehicle in which two other people sat. The shooters were in the parked Chevrolet Equinox for three minutes and 19 seconds before getting out, carrying rifles and with fabric obscuring their faces. They fired 17 rounds into the garage.
Fort Worth Police Department homicide detectives arrested two suspects, Jay Nixon-Clark, whom a jury last year found guilty of capital murder, and Anthony Bell-Johnson, whose second trial has been underway this week after a defense mistrial motion was granted in July when a jury could not reach a verdict in his first trial.
The detectives used surveillance video from the killing scene and from a house near where the stolen suspects’ vehicle with an unusual roof was dumped and a license plate reader to identify the suspects. The detectives used tower pings from Bell-Johnson’s cellphone service provider records and, after the mistrial, DNA from a McDonald’s straw found in the vehicle to connect Bell-Johnson to the killings.
Bell-Johnson is known as One Leg and uses a prosthetic limb after losing his leg as a child in a train accident.
Prosecutors argued the gait of a person who walks with a limp can be seen in one of the people in the surveillance video from the homicide scene and the site where the SUV was dumped. Five days after the killings, a police officer at a Walmart found a fob that operates the stolen Equinox in Bell-Johnson’s pocket.
Nixon-Clark fired from a high-powered white Kriss Vector, a unique semiautomatic gun.
Police do not have the second gun.
“They’ve got nothing linking Anthony Bell-Johnson to any firearm on August 28, 2022,” defense attorney Gary Smart told the jury in his closing argument.
Other evidence is immense, Tarrant County Assistant District Attorney Bill Vassar suggested on Friday in the state’s closing argument to the jury considering Bell-Johnson’s guilt or innocence.
“What are the odds that we’ve got the wrong guy?” Vassar asked in his closing. Lower than winning a lottery, the prosecutor said.
A McChicken wrapper, evidence of a pre-killing meal, was found in the suspects’ vehicle.
“Because you can’t gun down kids in broad daylight unless you eat first,” Melinda Hogan, who is prosecuting the case with Vassar, facetiously noted in the state’s closing argument.
On Friday in Criminal District Court No. 2, the jury found Bell-Johnson not guilty of capital murder and guilty of two counts of murder, as a lesser-included offense.
Bell-Johnson was indicted on capital murder under a statute that alleges he intentionally or knowingly caused the death of multiple people during the same criminal transaction.
In its verdict, the jury appears to have found Bell-Johnson intentionally or knowingly caused the deaths of both Rayshard and Jamarrien, but not at the same time.
The verdict is confounding in some respects because the timing of the shooting and deaths was not in dispute at trial. The jury deliberated for about four hours and 45 minutes and asked for access to several video exhibits.
Trial will continue Monday with sentencing phase
The verdict’s implications for punishment are significant. Defendants found guilty of capital murder in cases in which the state has waived the death penalty and in which the defendant was older than 18 at the time of the crime are automatically sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
On Monday, the jury will hear evidence in the trial’s punishment phase and consider assessing a prison term of between five and 99 years, or life. Criminal law experts said it appears that a judge could not stack the punishment terms in the two murder counts in this case.
There was confusion in the verdict’s delivery. The presiding juror at first signed a verdict form indicating both a guilty and not guilty verdict on one of the murder counts.
Judge William Knight asked the presiding juror to clarify the panel’s intent, and the juror said he meant to sign the guilty line before submitting a second, corrected form.
Defense attorneys Smart and Kevin Rosseau had argued the detectives’ investigation was marred by tunnel vision and that the investigators did not sufficiently explore other possible suspects, including a person who made a threat on Jamarrien Monroe’s life.
“’It’s not a Whodunit.’ How many times did we hear that?” Rousseau asked in his closing, referring to testimony from Detective Jerry Cedillo on his certainty that Bell-Johnson was one of the shooters.
Bell-Johnson was obstinate in an interview with detectives and made no admission. He elected not to testify during his trial.
The state does not have a witness who can testify that they saw Bell-Johnson at the homicide scene on Steel Dust Drive. Neighbors whose surveillance cameras recorded the shooting at a distance have testified that they could not tell whether the people in the images were male or female.
The homicides’ motive is nebulous, prosecutor Vassar suggested to the jury, and may be connected to a school beef, retaliation or a diss track.
Evidence includes interview with one defendant
In the Nixon-Clark trial, the law enforcement theory on motive was more definitive. According to Detective Cedillo’s testimony, Bell-Johnson and Nixon-Clark were at the house to shoot Jamarrien Monroe because the defendants believed that associates of Monroe had fired bullets at a house in which Bell-Johnson’s relatives lived.
Nixon-Clark told Cedillo that he was carrying a Kriss Vector gun when he got out of the SUV at the crime scene. Nixon-Clark fired one round that was collected from a stairwell inside the house before the gun jammed, according to prosecutors. (In the final of several accounts he offered to detectives in an interview, Nixon-Clark admitted that, before it jammed, he fired one round when the gun was pointed toward the ground.)
According to testimony, Bell-Johnson once held his artificial limb and pretended to fire it in a fashion similar to the way in which police allege he handled the Draco, an AK-style pistol known as a chopper, from which he fired 7.62 rounds into the house. Police found the ejected cartridge casings of 15 such rounds in the street.
After he was shot in the abdomen, Jamarrien ran from the garage to the laundry room and kitchen before he collapsed near the front door. The round transected an artery and Jamarrien left a trail of his blood on the floor as he moved through the house.
Rayshard fell to the garage floor near the door leading to the interior of the house.
“You know how big a casket for a 5-year-old is?” Detective Cedillo would later ask Nixon-Clark in an interview, trying to jolt him into honesty. “It’s small.”
On the day of the shooting, Nixon-Clark was 16 years and 9 months old, just shy of reaching legal status as an adult. Bell-Johnson was 21. Nixon-Clark was certified to be tried as an adult after the case was first filed in a juvenile court.
Cedillo previously testified that a fingerprint on a door handle from the Chevrolet Equinox is among evidence that connects Tyreion Nixon-Clark, a brother of Jay Nixon-Clark, to the Steel Dust Drive scene. Bell-Johnson and Jay Nixon-Clark are the only suspects who law enforcement authorities allege fired shots in the case. Tyreion Nixon-Clark and the fourth vehicle occupant have not been indicted in connection with the shooting.
Two days after Jamarrien Monroe and his 5-year-old cousin were killed, police arrested Tyreion Nixon-Clark in connection with an unrelated homicide motivated by robbery in which the suspect arranged a meeting that the victim thought was to be a rifle sale, authorities said. Tyreion Nixon-Clark was in May 2024 convicted of aggravated robbery in the homicide of 17-year-old Deadrick Mason.
In the interview with Cedillo and the Steel Dust Drive case’s lead detective, Leah Dickerson, Jay Nixon-Clark first denied any involvement and suggested that Jamarrien Monroe was an acquaintance with whom he was on good terms.
Cedillo, who was familiar with Jay Nixon-Clark because of his work on the homicide in which Nixon-Clark’s brother was a suspect, pressed for more.
Finally Nixon-Clark admitted firing once after he had watched from the vehicle as a child tottered from the garage to the driveway in a diaper.
Nixon-Clark was unable to clear his jammed weapon and could not fire again, he told police.
Detective Dickerson received a telephone tip that Jay Nixon-Clark might be a suspect.
Prosecutors Vassar and Hogan also introduced to the jury evidence of location data police extracted from his cellphone and suggested there was an absence of location data at the time of the killings because the defendant had placed his phone in airplane mode.
Nine months after the homicides, a Fort Worth Police Department Gang Unit officer documented Nixon-Clark as a Crip gang member.
Nixon-Clark and Bell-Johnson participated in a music video in which they pointed guns, referenced gang affiliations and threw gang signs, according to prosecutors. The video was uploaded to YouTube in June 2022.
Emerson Clarridge covers crime and other breaking news for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He works days and reports on law enforcement affairs in Tarrant County. He previously was a reporter at the Omaha World-Herald and the Observer-Dispatch in Utica, New York.
The Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office on Friday charged a southeast Fort Worth game room security guard with murder in connection with the killing of a man with whom he feuded over ownership of a pickup truck.
Photo from Max Fleischmann, UnSplash
The Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office on Friday charged a southeast Fort Worth game room security guard with murder in connection with the killing of a man with whom he feuded over ownership of a pickup truck.
The guard, Antwone Polk, was inside the game room lobby, sitting at a desk when, early on Nov. 8, Stevie Jones entered and had a confrontation with Polk, according to a police account.
A few minutes later, Jones left the game room in the 2600 block of South Riverside Drive and walked through the parking lot toward a parked Dodge Dakota that Polk later told a police officer Polk had purchased in the previous hours from a person he encountered on the street.
Jones opened the driver’s side door and began driving toward the exit gate, according to the affidavit supporting Polk’s arrest warrant in which a detective describes game room surveillance camera recordings.
Polk reached under the desk where he was sitting and picked up a duffel bag, the video showed. Polk stood, withdrew a gun from the bag and left the game room, according to the affidavit.
As the pickup drove toward the exit gate, Polk followed alongside the driver’s side on foot while pulling on the door handles. Polk fired multiple rounds into the driver’s side window, according to the affidavit.
Jones, who was 58, died at a hospital on Dec. 12 of complications from gunshot wounds to the left arm and torso. Jones had told police that a female friend took his truck without permission and sold it to a man at the game room. Jones said after he found the truck, he used his keys to get inside and was driving away when the man came outside and shot him.
The woman had told Polk she was the rightful owner of the truck and signed the title over to him, police have said.
In a separate case on Jan. 1, another security guard shot a woman to death at the same game room after she advanced toward him with a “stabbing weapon,” according to police. A police record states that an officer found a screwdriver on the ground next to the woman.
Polk was not the shooter in the Jan. 1 case. Police have not released the shooter’s name and have not made an arrest in that case.
This story was originally published January 16, 2026 at 5:20 PM.
Emerson Clarridge covers crime and other breaking news for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He works days and reports on law enforcement affairs in Tarrant County. He previously was a reporter at the Omaha World-Herald and the Observer-Dispatch in Utica, New York.
An eyewitness provided a detective with the nicknames of two shooters who she said fired upon a man in an October killing inside a Fort Worth nightclub, and the identification is among the evidence supporting murder, gang and mass shooting indictments in the case, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
The eyewitness knew Patrique Allen, the man who was slain, and was standing near Allen when, she told the detective, she saw a person who she knows as Lil Steppa shoot at Allen. The eyewitness was less certain about the second shooter. She said that he may be a person who she knows as BaBa. The eyewitness later identified photos of the shooters, who police concluded are Akrell Ross and Jason Nash, each from among the images of six people who look similar.
The shooting left a bullet under a couch cushion and ejected cartridge casings in blood under the couch inside Social LIVV, a club on Bledsoe Street in Fort Worth’s West 7th entertainment district.
Allen, an Eastside Gorillas gang member, died in the club. A man and four women who were shot at the same time survived.
Fort Worth Police Gang Unit officers determined that nicknames that were provided by the eyewitness belong to two Crips set members. Nash had been documented as a Glen Garden Hard Head member and Ross was documented as a Five Deuce Hoova member.
An arrest warrant affidavit that the Fort Worth Police Department released on Monday refers to the gang membership of the victim and suspects but does not describe the killing’s precise motive.
Homicide Unit Detective Tom O’Brien obtained a second six-pack photo identification from a surviving shooting victim who identified Nash as the person she watched open fire inside the club.
A third suspect, Lamar Luster, was arrested on suspicion of murder under the law of parties that holds a person criminally responsible for the conduct of another person if the person solicits, encourages, direct or aids the other person to commit an offense.
Video surveillance shows that at 1:38 a.m. Luster spoke to the two shooters and pulled something that looked like a handgun with an extended magazine out of the front of his pants, according to the affidavit.
One minute later Luster was grouped together with the shooters when he appeared to hand the gun to one of the shooters, the video showed.
Allen had a role in two homicides. He was a possible suspect in a third killing, according to a police source.
Six people inside Social LIVV, a nightclub on Bledsoe Street in Fort Worth’s West 7th entertainment district, were shot in October. Three suspects face charges in the shooting. Shambhavi Rimal srimal@star-telegram.com
This story was originally published January 5, 2026 at 7:40 PM.
Emerson Clarridge covers crime and other breaking news for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He works days and reports on law enforcement affairs in Tarrant County. He previously was a reporter at the Omaha World-Herald and the Observer-Dispatch in Utica, New York.
Tonishea Harris was a fashionista with a unique laugh, always put together and a mother of two young children expecting her third child.
She hoped to pursue interior design using her skill for organizing, family members said. Tonishea was shot and killed last month in a case of domestic violence. She leaves behind a toddler daughter and son.
The 36-year-old mother was about four months pregnant with a girl when she was shot Oct. 10 in the 5200 block of Cross Plains Court, in southwest Fort Worth near Benbrook, police have said. She arrived in a private vehicle at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital, where she died.
The father of her children, 21-year-old Joseph Weathered, was arrested and faces a charge of capital murder of multiple people in the deaths of Tonishea Harris and her unborn baby. He’s in the Tarrant County Jail with bond set at $500,000.
“I called Tonishea, ‘Mama’ when she was a baby,” her father, Antonio Harris, said in an interview with the Star-Telegram. “I told her, ‘I’m gonna teach you how to take care of me.’ And she took care of the world and everybody around her.”
Antonio Harris with his daughter, Tonishea Harris. Courtesy of Antonio Harris
Harris said his daughter was the type of person who always paid attention to others, and made sure that everything and everybody was all right around her. “She was just one that brought about the order and made sure that everybody else was enjoying where they were at that time,” he said.
“I learned what love at first sight was with my daughter. When I saw her, something told me, ‘Man, you have to take care of this for the rest of your life,’” Harris said. “She was the same way — it was instant love for those babies.”
Harris said his daughter was always prepared, ready for motherhood and nurturing to the fullest. “Her life was wrapped around who they (her children) were — that’s all she wanted, to be a mother,” he said.
Father and daughter’s last conversation
Three days before the shooting, on Oct. 7, Tonishea called her father and said, “Daddy, I’m through with him (Joseph).”
Antonio Harris said this was the first time he heard about problems in their relationship. Tonishea told him she wanted Weathered to sign papers regarding custody of the children.
Antonio Harris lost his daughter, Tonishea Harris, 36, to suspected domestic violence. Tonishea and her unborn child died from a gunshot wound on Oct. 10. “I will miss her voice and her laugh because she was always joyful,” Antonio Harris said. Amanda McCoy amccoy@star-telegram.com
“Something just told me like this was a strange conversation, so in my mind I was going to revisit that conversation,” he said.
At the end of the call, Harris heard his favorite words one last time: “I love you, Daddy.”
“Daddy was the word that meant everything in the world to me,” he said.
Coping with loss that’s ‘really unbelievable’
Antonio Harris and his twin brother were celebrating their birthday when he got a call from Joseph’s father, who told him Tonishea had been shot, he said.
“I was like, wait a minute — you know how you take a look at the phone, and make sure that you know this person, first of all, and then you’re trying to figure out what in the world did he just say,” he said.
Antonio Harris, left, talks about the loss of daughter Tonishea Harris with his brother, Anthony, on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. Amanda McCoy amccoy@star-telegram.com
At the hospital, a doctor came out and told Harris that they tried to stop the bleeding, but Tonishea lost too much blood and she died. When he heard those words, he was in disbelief.
“The breeze of reality slowly sinks in, and that’s where I am now. It’s really unbelievable, but I’m a realist,” Harris said. “I take with me from my baby the fact that she was one that created her own path and did what she thought was necessary.”
“I’m still in a state of, ‘Is this really happening’? And I think everybody probably goes through that stage,” Harris said. “But I’m at rest with who she is, because I can’t do anything about it.”
Antonio Harris shows a locket with a picture with his daughter, Tonishea Harris, while talking about her on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. Tonishea Harris, 36, and her unborn child died from a gunshot wound on Oct. 10 Amanda McCoy amccoy@star-telegram.com
Harris said he did not know about the pregnancy until he was at the hospital.
If he could talk to Joseph, he would tell him, “You had the best thing in the world. I can only imagine your world without it.”
Tonishea’s two children are now with her mother, Djuana Bullard, Harris said. “My soul responsibility is to ensure the happiness and the joy of those babies in this lifetime,” he said.
Two families affected by tragedy
Taviana Weathered, Joseph’s sister, said Tonishea and her children always came to family events looking well put-together and healthy.
She said Tonishea was the best mom to her babies. “That just makes me tear up because she was truly a good mom, and she really pushed us to be aunties,” Taviana said, with her voice shaking.
Tonishea Harris Courtesy of Antonio Harris
“I love her so much,” Taviana said. “I don’t think this is the way she should be remembered and this is not the way that she should have gone.”
Taviana never knew what was going on with her because Tonishea was private, she said.
And as Joseph’s elder sister, she said she hadn’t spoken much to her brother since she moved out of the family home.
“I love you (Joseph) but I can’t condone anything if you are doing anything that may put you in a bad way,” she said.
Taviana said it was sad, but she and her sister felt accepted at Tonishea’s funeral. “We were able to be there for our family, which is our niece and nephew. We love you, Miss Tonishea, and it broke our hearts,” she said.
Antonio Harris at the funeral of his daughter, Tonishea Harris, 36. She was shot on Oct. 10, 2025, while pregnant with her third child. Courtesy of Antonio Harris
As the case moves forward, both families are focused on what’s best for the children.
“I hope the facts come out. That’s all we can say — everyone wants the facts to come out,” Taviana said. “I always pray that he’s the best version of himself … We don’t have any expectations for him outside of being the best man for himself and his kids. I really do stand on that. Even if things go left or right, he should be the best man for those kids, even if it starts today.”
Urging domestic violence victims to seek help
In December 2023, Joseph Weathered pleaded guilty to the offense of continuous violence against a family member and was sentenced to three years in prison. In that case in July 2022, Weathered, who was then 18 years old, hit a person he was dating and dragged her across the ground and separately pushed her, causing her to hit a window, according to court records. The victim in that case was not Harris.
“If you’re in that type of environment, whether you’re the perpetrator or the one who’s the victim, help yourself. Get out of it, because it may lead to death or a prison sentence,” Antonio Harris said.
“Understand what domestic violence is,” Harris said. “Our problem is that we don’t know when it becomes what that is. It sneaks up on us.”
Antonio Harris tears up while thinking about his daughter, Tonishea Harris, 36, on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. Tonishea and her unborn child died from a gunshot wound on Oct. 10. “I will miss her voice and her laugh because she was always joyful,” Harris said. Amanda McCoy amccoy@star-telegram.com
Taviana Weathered said she also dealt with domestic violence in a previous relationship and, “I think it’s best to advocate for yourself.”
“If you’re not going to stick up for you, stick up for those babies, because they don’t deserve to see their parents go through anything,” she said. “You don’t deserve to be stalked or harassed or anything. You have to stick up for yourself and get away from it.”
Shambhavi covers crime, law enforcement and other breaking news in Fort Worth and Tarrant County. She graduated from the University of North Texas and previously covered a variety of general assignment topics in West Texas. She grew up in Nepal.
Two men were killed in unrelated shootings Friday night and early Saturday in Fort Worth, police say. No suspects have been arrested in the homicides.
Courtesy: Fort Worth police
Two men were killed in unrelated shootings Friday night and early Saturday in Fort Worth, police said.
Officers were called to the 3800 block of Lauretta Drive shortly before 9 p.m. Friday. They found a man in front of the house who had been shot multiple times, according to police. The 23-year-old died at the scene.
Investigators learned the man had been outside the residence when a group of people showed up. They got into an argument with the man, and somebody pulled a gun and fired several shots at the victim, police said. The group left the area after the shooting; no suspects have been arrested.
Homicide detectives are interviewing witnesses and looking for surveillance video of the surrounding area.
Officers responded to a second fatal shooting shortly after 1:45 a.m. Saturday. They found a man lying in the parking lot of an apartment complex in the 3300 block of Augusta Lane. He had multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police.
The man was wearing a surgical mask and rubber gloves. Police said he may have been breaking into vehicles at the complex when he was shot. Officers were told that three or four men wearing masks and gloves had been seen at the location.
The investigation into both shootings is ongoing, police said. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner will publicly identify the men who died.
This story was originally published November 15, 2025 at 11:18 AM.
A man was killed and five people were wounded early Oct. 5 in an apparently gang-related shooting inside Social LIVV, a bar on Bledsoe Street in Fort Worth’s West 7th entertainment district, police said.
Shambhavi Rimal
srimal@star-telegram.com
A second murder suspect has been arrested in an October shooting at a bar in Fort Worth’s West 7th entertainment district, police said.
23-year-old Jason Nash was arrested in south Fort Worth on Wednesday, Police Chief Eddie Garcia announced on social media.
Patrique Allen, 31, was killed and five others were wounded in the shooting at nightclub Social LIVV on Oct. 5, the Star-Telegram previously reported.
The shooting appeared to be gang-related, police said at the time.
The first suspect, 20-year-old Akrell Ross, was arrested Oct. 8 after barricading himself inside a residence in the 5400 block of Huffines Boulevard, police said.
An affidavit supporting Nash’s arrest was not immediately available Wednesday night.
This story was originally published November 5, 2025 at 10:00 PM.
Lillie Davidson is a breaking news reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. She graduated from TCU in 2025 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, is fluent in Spanish, and can complete a crossword in five minutes. Support my work with a digital subscription
In Laterica Johnson’s account, the threat to her life last Friday in a southeast Fort Worth parking lot was so significant that she had no choice but to fire her silver and black 9mm Smith and Wesson.
Two women were standing before Johnson. One held a baseball bat, she would tell a homicide detective. The other had a knife, she said. A pickup truck blocked Johnson from leaving.
None of Johnson’s story is true, police say.
Video surveillance from Don’s Seafood, the restaurant at which the shooting occurred, belies Johnson’s telling of the encounter, according to the arrest warrant affidavit the detective submitted to a municipal court judge in support of Johnson’s booking on suspicion of murder in the death of 18-year-old Jenny Rosales.
Johnson shot Rosales in the chest outside the restaurant in the 5100 block of Wichita Street.
Johnson left the parking lot, called 911 and waited for officers at another location.
Before the shooting, Johnson and Rosales’ mother had been involved in a minor car accident.
In an interview with Fort Worth Police Department homicide Detective Tom O’Brien, Johnson said that she provided her insurance information and the other driver, who only spoke Spanish, declined to provide information. Johnson left and went to Don’s Seafood for snow cones.
Johnson, who is 47 years old, said that as she and her son were parked outside the restaurant, three vehicles pulled in.
Two women armed with weapons approached, Johnson told police.
Johnson said that they threatened her and said the only way she was leaving was in a body bag, according to the affidavit. Johnson said that one of the women struck her vehicle with the baseball bat while threatening her life.
Johnson said that her son got out of the car to protect her and when she saw a woman hit him, Johnson got out of the car and shot the woman. Johnson said that is when another woman pushed her and Johnson fired shots at her, according to the affidavit.
“The statement she provided was clearly not true due to the entire incident being captured on video surveillance,” Detective O’Brien wrote in the affidavit. “It’s clear that all of the details she provided as justification for using deadly force [were] a lie as none of them are consistent with the video of the incident.”
Beyond Johnson, detectives interviewed three witnesses: Johnson’s son and Rosales’ girlfriend and mother.
Johnson’s son said that women were arguing with his mother about sharing the insurance information. He said when one of the women stood in front of the car so they could not leave, he got out and asked her to move. The woman slapped him, he punched her and his mother shot her, he said.
Johnson fired from the driver’s seat and shot through the passenger window, according to the affidavit.
Johnson’s son, whose name is redacted from the affidavit, initially told police that the other women had a knife and a gun, but then he recanted that information.
“After being confronted with the fact that there was video of the incident he changed his story and admitted that the female never hit him prior to his mom shooting her.” Detective O’Brien wrote.
Jenny Rosales’ girlfriend told O’Brien that Rosales received a call from her mother asking her to go to Don’s Seafood to try to get insurance information from a person who was involved in a traffic accident, according to the affidavit.
The girlfriend, whose name is redacted from the affidavit, said that she and Rosales drove to the restaurant, found the person they believed to have been involved and asked about getting her insurance information.
The girlfriend said Johnson declined to provide that information because Johnson said that she had done that previously.
The girlfriend said that Rosales and Johnson were getting aggressive in their tones as they argued, and at one point Johnson showed them that she had a handgun.
The girlfriend said the person in the back seat got out of Johnson’s vehicle and came at Rosales in a fighting stance, but they never physically fought, according to the affidavit.
She said when Johnson’s son got out to fight, Johnson left the car with her handgun and pointed it at her and others, according to the affidavit.
Rosales’ girlfriend said when Johnson and her son got back in the car, Johnson tried to drive away, and the girlfriend stepped in front of the car and told them to wait for the police.
Rosales’ girlfriend said Johnson drove into her, hitting her legs and forcing her to fall, according to the affidavit. The girlfriend then heard two gunshots and saw Rosales fall to the ground, she said.
Jenny Rosales, 18, was fatally shot outside a Fort Worth restaurant on Friday, Oct. 3, by a woman who tried to leave the scene of a minor car accident without exchanging insurance information, according to police. Family photo via GoFundMe
Rosales’ mother told police that she saw Johnson shoot her daughter after hitting her girlfriend with the car.
The video confirms the account given by Rosales’ girlfriend and mother, according to the affidavit.
Jenny Rosales’ brother, Fernando Rosales, organized a GoFundMe to raise money for funeral expenses.
Jenny “was so young, full of joy, very hard headed and stubborn but I admired that most from her,” her brother wrote. “She was fearless and wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone and I believe that was her greatest asset. Brave till her last moments protecting her own and her partner.”
Emerson Clarridge covers crime and other breaking news for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He works days and reports on law enforcement affairs in Tarrant County. He previously was a reporter at the Omaha World-Herald and the Observer-Dispatch in Utica, New York.
A murder suspect in Sunday’s shooting that killed a man and wounded five people at a West 7th district nightclub was arrested Wednesday night following a standoff with SWAT officers, Fort Worth police said.
Police Chief Eddie Garcia announced that the suspect, 20-year-old Akrell Ross, was tracked down by the department’s fugitive task force.
Ross barricaded himself in a residence in the 5400 block of Huffines Boulevard, in northwest Fort Worth, about 7 p.m. After SWAT officers responded, he was taken into custody without further incident, police said.
Homicide detectives have said that they believe the shooting early Sunday at nightclub Social LIVV on Bledsoe Street was gang-related.
Patrique Allen, 31, was killed in the shooting, and investigators believe he was targeted because of his gang affiliations. The five surviving victims were bystanders, police said.
#FollowUp – A murder suspect from the 7th St. shooting this past Sunday is now in our custody.
Akrell Ross B/M 20 YOA was tracked down today by our fugitive task force and after barricading himself in a residence near 5400 Huffines Blvd., he was taken into custody without… pic.twitter.com/xLhbscgHpi
In their preliminary investigation, homicide detectives determined that multiple suspects fired handguns inside the bar.
Investigators said that the suspects in the shooting are documented gang members and that there is a history of a feud between the involved parties. Allen was a member of the Eastside Gorillas and Truman Street Bloods gangs, prosecutors with the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office wrote in court documents related to a murder case in which he was convicted.
Ross is the first suspect to be arrested in the Social LIVV shooting. He was booked into the city jail shortly after 10 p.m. Wednesday.
“This is still an active investigation and as further details become available, they will be provided,” Garcia wrote in a post on X. “BIG THANKS to SWAT, DRU, patrol officers, fugitive, homicide & negotiators for your amazing work!”
Sunday’s shooting continued a violent weekend in Fort Worth after police investigated three homicides on Friday, including a stabbing across the street from Polytechnic High School that killed a 15-year-old student and critically injured his father, a shooting that killed an 18-year-old woman in a restaurant parking lot, and a shooting that killed a gas station employee during a reported robbery.
A fifth homicide occurred Monday night, when a man was stabbed to death during a fight at a convenience store on Camp Bowie West Boulevard, police said.
Staff writers Emerson Clarridge and Shambhavi Rimal contributed to this report.
This story was originally published October 8, 2025 at 11:39 PM.
When Janet De La Rosa went to inform the school about the threats on Oct. 1, she said, she was told the school resource officer was not available but another employee would take her report and give it to the SRO.
The mother told the Star-Telegram on Monday that she didn’t feel her concerns were taken seriously by the school.
She said she showed a school employee messages from “the kid that originally started this whole thing, that he was threatening to come to my house and shoot it up, and that he was sending messages to my son.”
His family describes 15-year-old Jacob De La Rosa as a kind-hearted young man who always took care of his family. Jacob was fatally stabbed, and his father, who was also stabbed, remains in the hospital. Courtesy of the De La Rosa Family
Fort Worth ISD officials said in a statement Monday that the loss of Jacob De La Rosa will be felt deeply and that he was a valued member of the Polytechnic High School community.
“Our hearts are with Jacob’s family, friends, and all who knew and loved him,” a spokesperson for the district said in the statement. “This kind of loss is never easy, and it’s important that we care for one another in the days ahead. Counselors are available on campus today and throughout the week to support students and staff.”
Fort Worth ISD officials said Monday that they wouldn’t comment further about the incident out of respect for the family and the ongoing police investigation.
Janet said she also called Fort Worth police around 4 p.m. on Oct. 1 to report the threats and she waited until 1:30 a.m. and no officers showed up to take her report. Asked at a news conference Monday about what the family said regarding threats, Police Chief Eddie Garcia said that homicide detectives are still investigating all the circumstances surrounding the stabbing.
Police have said that they interviewed a juvenile suspect who claimed to have cut the victims in self-defense during a fight. Evidence from the investigation will be presented to the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office to determine any possible charges.
Janet said on that Monday that her husband is stable after surgery, but he has a long recovery ahead of him.
The day of the incident, Janet said, one of her sons texted the parents to say there were rumors going around that his brother was going to get jumped at the school. Jacob and one older brother were attending Poly High School, while their oldest brother is no longer at the school. Their father drove to a gas station near the school to pick up the two boys. Police have said that the fight started in the gas station parking lot and continued toward Rosedale Street.
Janet said her husband told her that he saw the alleged perpetrators walking around looking for their sons. Albert said that he got out of his truck to tell the boys to leave his sons alone, but before he could say anything, one of the boys punched him in the mouth, and another boy stabbed him.
Janet said that her older son and her husband told her that Jacob got out of the truck to help his dad, and one of the boys stabbed Jacob in the stomach and the heart. Her older son got Jacob back into the truck and told his father they needed to go to the hospital, she said.
“They had already planned this beforehand, that they were going to do something to my kids,” Janet De La Rosa said.
Jacob’s mother said her son was just a freshman in high school who was excited about his future.
Jacob De La Rosa trick-or-treating around the age of 6 or 7 Courtesy of the De La Rosa family
In tears and struggling to speak, she said this was a senseless act and Jacob was not involved in gangs or drugs. His death has left their family heartbroken.
“They ripped him from me, took somebody that meant so much to our family, and not only that, now my husband is disabled because of this,” Janet De La Rosa said. “They destroyed my family, and they broke my heart, and now I’m left with broken pieces, trying to pick them up, trying to help my oldest boys and my husband get help.”
She said her older son and husband will have to live the rest of their lives with the image of Jacob dying in their arms.
One person was killed and five were wounded early Sunday morning in an apparently gang-related shooting inside a bar on Bledsoe Street in Fort Worth’s West 7th entertainment district, police said.
Fort Worth Police Department
One person was killed and five were wounded early Sunday morning in an apparently gang-related shooting inside a bar on Bledsoe Street in Fort Worth’s West 7th entertainment district, police said.
Officers were called about 1:40 a.m. to the shooting scene at Social LIVV, 3005 Bledsoe St. They found the deceased victim inside the club with gunshot wounds to his upper torso, police said in a news release.
Five additional shooting victims were transported to hospitals by ambulance or in their own vehicles. The surviving victims were in stable condition as of about 7 a.m. Sunday.
In their preliminary investigation, homicide detectives determined that multiple unidentified suspects fired handguns inside the bar in what appears to be an unprovoked shooting, police said.
The suspects ran immediately after the shooting and before officers arrived. No arrests have been made at this time.
Police said the motive for the shooting appears to be gang-related, “but the investigation is still preliminary and subject to change.”
The block of Bledsoe Street where Sunday’s shooting occurred is where TCU student Wes Smith was fatally shot in the street in September 2023. The shooter in that case pleaded guilty to murder in June of this year and was sentenced to 60 years in prison.
Jacob De La Rosa is being remembered as a quiet and kind-hearted boy who dreamed of a bright future, his family says. The 15-year-old was stabbed in Fort Worth and died at JPS Hospital on Friday.
Family photo courtesy of GoFundMe
A 15-year-old boy died Friday in a hospital emergency room from stab wounds in a case that Fort Worth police are investigating as a homicide, authorities said.
Jacob De La Rosa died shortly after 4 p.m. in the ER at John Peter Smith Hospital, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office website.
Fort Worth police said in a news release that officers were called about 3:45 p.m. Friday to the 2700 block of East Rosedale Street to investigate the stabbing. When officers arrived, everyone involved had left the location.
Officers later located a juvenile suspect who admitted to cutting two other people during a fight. The juvenile, whose name has not been released, told police it was self-defense.
Police learned that De La Rosa had died at the hospital and that a second person who was stabbed was hospitalized in critical condition.
Detectives are continuing to investigate this case and will provide information to the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office for review to determine any possible charges, police said.
“What happened to Jacob should not have happened to anyone,” the GoFundMe states. “The pain of losing him in this way — sudden, cruel, and preventable — is something no family should endure.”
Jacob is described in the fundraiser as “a quiet, kind-hearted soul.” He had just celebrated his 15th birthday.
“Despite growing up in difficult circumstances, Jacob never gave up on dreaming of a brighter future,” Jesus Alanis wrote in the GoFundMe. “One where he could give back, make his family proud, and rise above the violence that too often surrounded him.”
Two other homicides in Fort Worth
Two other people were killed in separate incidents in Fort Worth on Friday, according to police.
Archive photo of a Fort Worth police car. An 18-year-old woman was killed in a shooting in a restaurant parking lot in southeast Fort Worth on Friday afternoon, Oct. 3.
Amanda McCoy
amccoy@star-telegram.com
An 18-year-old woman was killed in a shooting in a restaurant parking lot in southeast Fort Worth on Friday afternoon.
Jenny Rosales was pronounced dead in the parking lot of Don’s Seafood, at 5109 Wichita St., about 4:40 p.m. on Friday, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Officers responded to a 911 call about the shooting about 4:15 p.m., according to police records.
The shooting was one of four homicides that Fort Worth police investigated on Friday, police records show.
A college student from India, Chandrashekar Pole, was shot and killed during a robbery Friday night at a gas station on Eastchase Parkway in Fort Worth, Texas.
Fort Worth Police Department
A college student from India was shot and killed during a robbery Friday night at a gas station on Eastchase Parkway in Fort Worth.
Police were called to the gas station near the Interstate 30 eastbound ramp about 8:45 p.m., according to a 911 call log.
Indian media outlets reported that the victim, identified in a Fort Worth police report as Chandrashekar Pole, was a University of North Texas student who was working at the gas station.
Pole moved to the U.S. in 2023 to continue his education after he earned his bachelor’s in dental surgery in Hyderabad, India, News18 reported.
No arrests have been announced in the case.
The shooting was one of four homicides that Fort Worth police investigated on Friday, according to police records.
In a separate shooting Friday afternoon, 18-year-old Jenny Rosales was pronounced dead in the parking lot of Don’s Seafood restaurant, at 5109 Wichita St., about 4:40 p.m. on Friday, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office.
A police spokesperson said that homicide detectives will release further details about the cases on Saturday.
This story was originally published October 4, 2025 at 9:39 AM.
.jpg "One person was killed and five were wounded early Sunday morning in an apparently gang-related shooting inside a bar on Bledsoe Street in Fort Worth’s West 7th entertainment district, police said.")
