North Texas jury sentences killer to death penalty for shooting Burleson woman, cop

A jury of 12 Johnson County residents voted Thursday to send 31-year-old Jerry Elders to death row for the murder of Robin Waddell , agreeing with prosecutors who requested the death penalty.

The defense argued for life in prison without parole, saying Thursday morning that Elders’ actions came after a lifetime of drug addiction and going in and out of jails and prisons, being kicked out of his family home as a teenager and not receiving support from family members.

The prosecution said that wasn’t true. Elders had support from a loving family, from housing to food to money to even a car, and refused to let them help him get off drugs, the state argued. Assistant District Attorney Matthew Staton told the jury Elders used drugs because he liked them.

Staton said the defendant is a coward who carjacked and killed Waddell because he didn’t want her to lead authorities to him after he shot a police officer during a traffic stop.

During jury selection, the majority of jurors said they believe that spending life in prison is a harsher sentence than being put to death, defense attorney Miles Brissette reminded them in his closing argument. Death was too easy, he said. The jurors seemed to have changed their minds.

Several jurors cried silently after the sentence was announced, clandestinely wiping their eyes. One appeared to pray. Another stared at the floor, not looking up until the judge addressed the jury again directly to discharge them from their duties.

Elders didn’t react when the verdict was read. He stood there, silent and still, his face carved from something solid and his eyes trained straight ahead.

Jurors began deliberating toward a punishment verdict around 10 a.m. Thursday and delivered their verdict shortly before 5:30 p.m. At one point, the jury asked to listen again to audio of the defendant’s phone calls from jail. Jurors also asked for clarification on whether Elders’ intoxication when he committed the crime would be a mitigating factor in deciding the sentence.

Victim’s family speaks after sentencing

Waddell’s daughter Patricia Cooke has been in court every day of the trial. When she took the stand to deliver a victim impact statement following the sentencing, she told Elders she wouldn’t call him by his name. He didn’t deserve to be called by a name, she said.

Cooke shifted in the witness stand, moving the chair and the microphone to make sure she could see him clearly.

“I’ll call you ‘killer,’ “ she told him. “Mother killer. Grandmother killer.”

She said that the defense claims that Elders was a “bungler” weren’t true. He knew what he was doing and was intentional about every move.

“You weren’t awfully clumsy,” Cooke said to him from the witness stand. “You fired five shots and five shots hit their target.”

She said she’s heard some people calling him “sweet Jer bear,” which she said was disgusting. It didn’t matter if he walked his partner’s children to the school bus or was loved by family members. He is the reason her daughters asked for chains on the doors and windows in their house. The reason she can’t think of her childhood anymore.

The basketball hoop where she used to play is now in her mind the place where he pointed a gun at her mother and forced her into the truck. The place the truck sat is now where he laid in wait. The memories of going to shoot targets with her father are tainted by the knowledge that her mother was shot to death.

And it’s made worse by the fact that the gun she and her father shot was a .38 Special, the same type Elders used in the killing.

She said she can’t even go to Joshua for a plate of nachos anymore.

“She was killed like an animal on the street, crawling up to a locked door,” Cooke told Elders. “At some point you will be sent back to hell where you belong. ... The law you so hate gave you a far better shot than you gave my mother.”

Robin Waddell’s daughter-in-law, Lori Waddell, told Elders that he took Robin not just from her children, but from her grandchildren.

“My daughter asked me to promise her that grandma would be OK and I couldn’t keep that promise,” she said.

Robin’s son, Phil Waddell, kept his statement short.

“The jury spoke for me,” he said.

Elders was convicted of capital murder

Elders was found guilty of capital murder last week. He shot a Burleson police officer during a 2021 traffic stop then fled, abducted 60-year-old Robin Waddell in her truck, shot her and threw her out of her truck in the back lot of the Joshua Police Department, authorities have said. Waddell died from her wounds. The officer, Joshua Lott, was shot three times but survived.

In a courtroom filled with law enforcement, on the first day of the three-week trial when the gallery was standing room only, the defense started the day asking Visiting Judge Lee Gabriel to expel uniformed law enforcement from the courtroom. The concern was that the jury would be intimidated by the uniforms or feel a sense of community expectation to deliver a death penalty verdict.

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Gabriel denied the request, saying that if the general public is allowed in the courtroom that uniformed officers are as well.

How Texas juries decide on death sentence

When deciding a sentence in Texas capital murder cases, jurors are asked to answer whether they think the defendant is likely to be a future danger to society, and if there is mitigating evidence to support the lesser sentence of life without parole.

Staton argued in closing statements that not only would Elders continue to be a threat to the society in prison, but also he deserves the death penalty.

“Nobody is giving this man the death penalty,” Staton said. “You will answer two questions but nobody in this courtroom is giving him the death penalty. He earned that.”

Defense attorneys said in closing arguments Thursday morning that Elders was under the influence of drugs when he committed the crimes, was put on the streets by his family as a teenager and was seen by the Johnson County District Attorney’s Office as not being a threat to society because they previously let him out on probation.

The argument from prosecutors that Elders is a danger to society, even if sentenced to life in prison, falls flat on its face, Brissette told the jurors.

Jurors asked to decide who Jerry Elders really is

Staton said that witnesses the defense brought in the punishment phase of the trial didn’t know the true Elders . Family members talked about him being fun-loving, humorous and good with children, but Staton said they didn’t know he was stealing catalytic converters, doing drugs and plotting to murder a police officer.

“Who would want Jerry to babysit your kids?” Staton asked.

The prosecution called Elders a coward and said that “what’s buried deep in his soul ... is hatred for the law and for law enforcement .”

The defense said Elders is a man who has been rejected by his family and put on the streets at 13 or 14 years old. Brissette said he’s been in and out of jail since he was a kid, lacked support and faced jealousy from his sister, whose children he said liked Elders more than her.

The prosecution said Elders had support from his family. Staton said they gave him food to eat, money when he needed it and a place to stay when he wasn’t incarcerated.

Both agreed that it was up to the jury to look at the evidence and decide which version of Elders is true.

Defense will appeal death sentence

Bob Gill will represent Elders in at least the first appeal of the death sentence.

After agreeing that Gill would represent him in his first appeal, Elders shook the hands of Gill, Brisette and an investigator for the attorneys.

A defendant who is sentenced to death is entitled to an automatic appeal to the. Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which is the highest court of criminal jurisdiction in. Texas.