A few central moments exist in the arc of most homicide suspect interviews.
Often a detective will begin with light banter as the suspect is asked for the spelling of his name and his home address.
Next the suspect is probed on the timeline of his day and, more often than not, will leave out anything that implicates him. The detective, not at all confrontational at this point, will nod along.
Then comes the pivot, the moment when the detective reveals he or she knows much more than the suspect believes.
A suspect may persist with lies or turn toward the truth.
“So here’s the deal, Jacoby,” Fort Worth Police Department homicide detective Jerry Cedillo said as he began the pivot with Jacoby Roberts, who had, to this point in the interview, been lying about his location on April 4, 2023.
Roberts abandoned his misleading answers the minute Detective Cedillo described to him evidence indicating that the suspect had been at an apartment complex near I-20 and Oak Grove Road in south Fort Worth when Jailon Freeman was shot to death.
Roberts and Freeman were cousins and sold cocaine together. Roberts believed that Freeman shorted him $500. Under the ruse of a cocaine deal with another person, Roberts plotted to lure Freeman from the complex to rob him, prosecutors argued.
Roberts asserted that he shot Freeman in self-defense when Freeman pulled a gun. His cousin reached for the firearm, and it became caught in his jacket pocket, the defendant said.
“I thought he was going to shoot,” Roberts said in the interview with Detective Cedillo. In his testimony before a jury at his capital murder trial this week, the defendant said that he was face to face with Freeman when he shot him and had no plan to rob his cousin.
Defendant Jacoby Roberts sits with his family at his capital murder trial in the 369th District Court at the Tim Curry Criminal Justice Center in Fort Worth on Thursday, July 24. Roberts shot to death his cousin Jailon Freeman.
Prosecutors argued that after shooting him, Roberts took Freeman’s handgun and cocaine off his body.
Detective Ernie Pate was also in the Homicide Unit office interview room with Roberts and suggested to the suspect his self-defense argument was meritless because he wore a latex glove and ski mask when the shooting occurred, indicating he was there for a planned robbery. Pate has retired.
On the sidewalk outside the apartment complex, Roberts shot Freeman once. The bullet entered the back of his head on the left side.
A jury in the 396th District Court in Tarrant County on Thursday found Roberts guilty of capital murder. The state presented to the panel text messages between codefendant Draylon Gowans, the fictitious drug sales customer, and Roberts in which the robbery was planned. The jury deliberated for about two hours.
Judge Vincent Giardino presided at the trial and sentenced Roberts, who is 25, to life in prison without the possibility of parole, capital murder’s automatic punishment when the state, as it did in the Roberts case, waives the death penalty.
Judge Vincent Giardino listens to the defense attorneys during the capital murder trial of Jacoby Roberts in the 369th District Court at the Tim Curry Criminal Justice Center in Fort Worth on Thursday, July 24. Roberts shot his cousin to death in a robbery in Fort Worth.
Homicides motivated by narcotics robbery in Fort Worth mostly involve marijuana, Cedillo testified. Cocaine-related robberies are highly unusual.
Defense attorneys Brett Boone and Miles Brissette argued the killing was justified by self-defense and probed the thoroughness of the Fort Worth Police Department’s cellphone data extraction process and whether Roberts’ interview with Detectives Cedillo and Pate was voluntarily made. The defense questioned whether, as the pathologist who performed the autopsy testified was possible, that Freeman’s body was twisting as he was fired upon.
In the state’s closing argument, Tarrant County Assistant District Attorney Matt Rivers recounted the evidence and argued that Roberts’ account of the shooting did not make sense.
“You’re the arbiters of justice,” Rivers told the jury.
District Judge Vincent Giardino listens to the defense attorneys during the capital murder trial of Jacoby Roberts in the 369th District Court at the Tim Curry Criminal Justice Center in Fort Worth on Thursday, July 24. Roberts shot to death his cousin Jailon Freeman.
Assistant District Attorney Ashton Moore also represented the state.
Gowans and his driver, Jordan Thurman, were also indicted on capital murder, and the cases are pending. Thurman testified that he was taking the witness stand without a promise from the state for plea agreement consideration. Thurman said he hoped that his indictment would be dismissed.
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