Boyfriend shot pregnant woman dead, police say. Wallet beside her held twins’ sonogram.
An image was tucked inside a wallet between her body and the Honda Civic’s center console.
The sonogram was taken in mid-June, and it listed Twin A and Twin B as boys and Darionne Burley as their mother.
She sat slumped Monday in the front passenger seat of the car parked in a lot in Mansfield, according to a police detective’s account in an affidavit. The smell of gun powder floated through the sedan. A bullet had torn through her head.
On the floorboard by Burley’s feet lay a round from a gun police allege was fired by Maurice Smith, her boyfriend. On the dashboard in front of her body was a ticket to a gun show at Will Rogers Coliseum, where the pistol that Smith used to kill her was purchased the day before, police said.
Smith, who was arrested on suspicion of capital murder of multiple persons, left Burley in the car with her blood on its tinted window and walked across the parking lot, according to the affidavit supporting an arrest warrant.
After he shot his girlfriend dead, Smith carjacked a woman in a sport utility vehicle about 1 p.m. in the 1600 block of N. U.S. 287 Frontage Road, police alleged. A detective arrived at his apartment in Fort Worth and found Smith and the SUV there.
Burley, 26, and Smith, 28, had been involved in an intermittent relationship since high school, Smith’s mother told police. They recently held a gender reveal party. Burley was due in October.
The killing’s motive is not clear, and Smith did not confess. Detectives interviewed him, but he stopped talking when the conversation turned toward Mansfield.
Smith said he had breakfast Monday with Burley at a Waffle House.
Smith said that as they left the restaurant, Burley told him the air was low in a tire on his Honda. Smith said that he went to put air in the tire at a gas station and then to Discount Tire. Smith said that he did not want to pay for a new tire and left. Smith said that in an argument, Burley made him feel like less of a man and called him a junkie, according to the affidavit. Smith said he drove home and she took the car to run errands.
Smith later said that after the argument he steered to the shoulder of a road, got out, jumped the fence to his apartment building, went inside and smoked K2.
“When confronted about being in Mansfield, Smith terminated the interview,” Det. Sheldon Peacock wrote in the affidavit.
A gun matching the caliber of a shell casing police said they found in Smith’s Honda and bloody clothing was collected from his apartment in the 1000 block of Woodlands Circle.
Police searched the apartment and said they found a bottle of bleach on the edge of a bathtub and a washcloth with what appeared to be blood on it, according to the affidavit. Underneath a bed, between the mattress and the box spring, was a Hi-Point .40-caliber pistol, a loaded magazine and a single loose bullet. The bullets loaded into the magazine were the same caliber and similar to the fired casing that was found inside Smith’s car.
Smith tried to buy a gun and was denied during an FBI background check, police said.
Detectives interviewed the man who bought the Hi-Point .40-caliber pistol they found. He said he attended the gun show with Smith and bought the gun.
The man sold it to Smith later in the day.
This story was originally published July 1, 2020 at 11:14 PM.
