Fort Worth man accused of killing 2 people and stabbing himself to claim self-defense
A 22-year-old Fort Worth man is accused of fatally shooting a man and stabbing a woman, and stabbing himself to try to claim self-defense, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
Jacoby McCloud was arrested Wednesday night and faces a charge of capital murder of multiple persons, according to police records. He was taken into custody and booked around 8 p.m.
McCloud is accused of killing 26-year-old Darion Deen and 22-year-old Shelby Amerson on the afternoon of Jan. 2, before stabbing himself and planting the knife in Deen’s open hand, according to the arrest warrant affidavit. The double homicide occurred at a home in the 300 block of Cromwell Street.
Police wrote in the affidavit that McCloud called 911 and reported that he shot his friend because his friend had stabbed him. Police asked McCloud if anyone had “shot or stabbed anyone” and McCloud told an officer that he’d shot somebody. He was detained and taken to the hospital for medical attention for a stab wound.
Police searched the home in a protective sweep and found a man and woman, later identified as Deen and Amerson, dead in separate rooms and a living witness who had been hiding during the shooting, according to the affidavit. Police said when a warrant was obtained, they found Deen had a knife in his right hand, unclenched. Amerson was found in a bedroom with a stab wound.
McCloud initially told police in an interview after he received medical attention that he heard an argument between Deen and Amerson in the bedroom they shared and then saw Deen leave the room, according to the affidavit. McCloud told police he shot Deen because he was scared. He didn’t see a weapon, he told police, but said the “look in his eyes” scared him. He told police he then went to check on Amerson and found her dead in the bedroom.
In a later interview, though, McCloud told police he backed away from Deen when he left the bedroom after the argument, that Deen did not have a weapon and made no threatening statements or movements and that McCloud shot him four times, he believed in the chest, according to the affidavit. After Deen collapsed on the living room floor, McCloud pulled a knife from his pocket, he told police.
According to the affidavit, McCloud described the same knife that was found in Deen’s hand and said he stabbed himself multiple times in his left bicep. McCloud said he was stabbing himself when he saw Shelby come into the living room and followed her back into the bedroom, where he stabbed her multiple times with the knife.
McCloud told police that she was lying on the floor of the bedroom with her head and upper back on the exterior bedroom door after he stabbed her, according to the affidavit. He then stabbed himself once more in his left shoulder and returned to the living room, where Deen was already dead, and put the knife in Deen’s hand, he told police.
The witness told a detective Deen owned the house and was in a relationship with Amerson, according to the affidavit. Deen and Amerson shared a bedroom in the house and McCloud and the witness also lived in the home. On Jan. 1, the day before the killings, the witness said Deen broke into McCloud’s room and damaged some of his property and took two puppies.
The witness said Deen then told him to tell McCloud that Deen would be “waiting for him,” according to the affidavit.
The witness said he left the house that night because he felt uncomfortable there and did not return until about 1 p.m. Jan. 2. He was packing some of his belongings in his bedroom when around 4:20 p.m. he heard gunshots from upstairs but was not sure how many shots were fired or by whom.
Both deaths were ruled homicides, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office. Deen’s cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds, and Amerson died from sharp force injuries.
This story was originally published February 10, 2022 at 12:01 PM.
