Breaking: Man found guilty of capital murder in killing Mesquite police officer
A Dallas County juror was sent back to deliberate about 3:30 p.m.; they returned with the verdict just after 4:30 p.m.
Jaramillo will be sentenced to life in prison without parole because prosecutors didn’t seek the death penalty. “We know he was there to keep the peace,” prosecutor Jason Hermus said in closing arguments. “What he walked into was this man, Jaime Jaramillo, who executed him and left him to die in the pool of his own blood on the cold hard pavement of a parking lot.”
Houston’s wife and daughter scoffed during the defense’s argument. The Dallas County courtroom gallery was filled with his family and law enforcement officers. Jaramillo, wearing an oversized black suit and white shirt, crossed his arms. He wore a headset, through which a translator orated the court proceedings.
Jaramillo’s daughter gave emotional testimony to jurors Tuesday that she tried to save Houston by holding his neck up to help him breathe. She screamed at her mother to call 911. “We wanted a family. We knew that from day one,” Shelley Houston told jurors. “He was an amazing father. They were his pride and joy.”Jeffrey Barnard, chief medical examiner for Dallas County, testified a bullet wound to Houston’s clavicle was “unequivocally life-threatening” and called it a “non-survivable” injury. The bullet damaged his lungs, heart and liver before exiting from his lower back.
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