Fort Worth gang member sentenced in shooting that killed 18-year-old innocent bystander
A man who killed an innocent bystander during a gang-related shooting in Fort Worth in 2021 has been sentenced to 40 years in prison after he pleaded guilty on Oct. 18, according to court records.
Leandre Steele, 22, pleaded to charges of engaging in organized criminal activity-murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in the shooting death of 18-year-old Hailey Watts.
Watts was driving with her boyfriend on April 20, 2021, outside the Park at LeBlanc apartments in the 6200 block of Salem Circle when Steele fired eight rounds in the direction of the couple’s vehicle while targeting someone else, prosecutors said. One of the bullets hit and killed Watts.
Watts, who for most of her life had been an only child, adored her two little sisters, who were 3 and 4 years old at the time of her death, her mother told the Star-Telegram in a 2021 interview.
Watts was looking forward to building her family and having children of her own. “She was wonderful,” her mother, Renea Dunn, said. “She was 18 and full of life.”
According to the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office, Steele is a documented member of the Bloods gang. As part of the plea agreement, Steele also admitted to his role in a house being shot up in August 2020, prosecutors said.
The Fort Worth Police Department’s homicide and gang units investigated the case.
