One hundred three days after he removed an ankle monitor that was a condition of his bond in a murder case, Daemon Ponce committed a second murder.
On Friday, in Criminal District Court No. 2 in Tarrant County, Ponce entered guilty pleas in three cases: the two Fort Worth murders and one aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Under the terms of the pleas negotiated by the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office and his defense attorney, Ponce was sentenced to 25 years in prison in each murder case and 10 years in the aggravated assault case, according to a district clerk record. The sentences will run at the same time.
Ponce, 21, will be eligible for parole after he has served 12 years and six months.
Had Ponce been found guilty of one murder at trial, with evidence of the other presented in the punishment phase as an extraneous event, a jury or judge would have considered a prison punishment range of five to 99 years, or life.
The aggravated assault case was filed in a shooting, also in Fort Worth, nine days before the second homicide, in October 2024.
Attorney Sean Colston was appointed to represent Ponce.
Ponce was released from jail in May 2024 as he awaited the first murder case’s disposition. The reinstated bond was $70,000.
Ponce was charged in the March 2022 shooting death of John Reyes, 21, at a party in north Fort Worth.
On May 31, 2022, the Fort Worth Police Department arrested Ponce in the killing. He was released from custody on a $50,000 bond that was later twice held insufficient, once because deputies alleged Ponce was in possession of two guns.
In May 2024, as Ponce’s case was pending, he was on 24-hour home confinement as a condition of his reinstated bond.
The Tarrant County Community Supervision and Corrections Department tracked Ponce’s adherence to the bond conditions. On Aug. 1, 2024, the agency was alerted when Ponce cut a GPS monitor from his ankle.
Ponce’s supervision officer spoke with the defendant’s girlfriend, according to agency records. She said she woke to the monitor beeping. Ponce was gone.
His girlfriend said that she believed he left about 11 a.m. and she had not been able to reach him. A bond violation warrant was filed that day.
On Oct. 12, 2024, a vehicle drove by MR Customs, a mechanic shop in the 1800 block of NE 33rd Street in north Fort Worth. Shots fired from the vehicle toward a group of people at the shop struck two men in their upper bodies, police have said. Jamarein Pevy, 19, died at a hospital. A 23-year-old man survived.
It is not clear precisely what efforts law enforcement authorities made to find Ponce and take him into custody after he cut off his GPS monitor.
The U.S. Marshals’ North Texas Fugitive Task Force was involved in the apprehension attempt, an agency spokesperson said. Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office deputies are on the task force and were also involved.
Ponce was taken into custody on the bond violation warrant on Oct. 18, 2024, six days after the shooting at the mechanic shop. He was booked on Aug. 5, 2025, in Pevy’s killing.
Nine days after the homicide, police arrested Jesus Benavides, a co-defendant in the mechanic shop homicide. Benavides was indicted on murder and aggravated assault. The case is pending.