In Tarrant County murder mistrial, defense argued man fired gun 14 times in fear
On a Monday in mid-April 2023, Zhahn Hawkins was at a Fort Worth apartment complex parking lot to support his 17-year-old sister.
She was there about 3:30 a.m. to hit and be hit in a fistfight among girls during an ongoing argument fueled by discord over missing cash and general disrespect.
Makayla Hawkins and Jaila Flake, who had been friends, were to assault one another on the grounds of the Spanish Village apartments along Meadowbrook Drive on the east side of Fort Worth.
The male supporter on the other half of the fray was Roderick Jones, a man in a relationship with Flake.
Before their parking lot encounter, Zhahn Hawkins and Jones had not met.
According to the account of prosecutors Idris Akinpelu and Kobe Landry, Zhahn Hawkins shot Jones to death by releasing a volley of 14 rounds from an AR-style pistol with a drum magazine holding 50 rounds.
The killing, the prosecutors argued to a jury in Zhahn Hawkins’ murder trial last week in a state district court in Tarrant County, was unjust and senseless.
Defense attorney Warren St. John argued the killing was rational and justified because when Zhahn Hawkins opened fire, Hawkins believed that Jones intended to shoot him.
Defendant testifies, says he killed man in self-defense
Zhahn Hawkins and Jones were on the periphery of the girls’ fight.
Over prosecutors’ objections to hearsay for which there is not an exception, Zhahn Hawkins testified that Jones threatened his life in the last of three instances when Jones approached him outside of the apartment buildings. Jones held and pointed a gun at him at the time, Zhahn Hawkins testified.
“I’m going to kill you,” Jones said, inserting an expletive, Zhahn Hawkins testified.
“Would you have shot him but for what he did?” St. John asked the man whom he was appointed to represent.
“No, sir,” the defendant testified.
Earlier in their direct encounters, Jones’ pistol was tucked in his pants, Zhahn Hawkins said.
Jones returned fire after he was was shot. A third person, whose identity is not known to Fort Worth Police Department Homicide Unit Detective Jerry Cedillo and other investigators, also then fired a gun.
Bullets struck Jones’ head, neck, torso, arms and legs, testified Dr. Mark Shelly, a pathologist who performed an autopsy. Jones died face down beside an SUV with blood coming out of his head.
Dr. Shelly guided the jury through 18 autopsy photos and a diagram showing 10 to 12 entrance gunshot wounds and eight to 10 exit wounds on Jones’ body.
Fourteen 5.56x45 mm caliber fired cartridge cases that police collected from the scene were fired from the AR-style pistol that Hawkins testified he fired, Mateo Serfontein, a forensic firearms examiner, concluded. Serfontein fired the gun into a water tank and compared the collected casings to the test casings under a microscope to reach the opinion.
Jurors can’t agree on verdict after reviewing evidence
Whether the shooting was reasonable and justified confounded the jury.
The panel several times watched two versions of a surveillance video recording of the parking lot. The images are recorded from a distance and are not crisp, although muzzle flashes and the movement of vehicles and people are clear. The apartment complex was selected as an ideal location for a fight because at least one person involved believed no surveillance camera would be there.
Beyond the video and the testimony of Zhahn Hawkins, the jury heard from Makayla Hawkins, whom the defense called to testify, but from no other person who was present at the time of the shooting.
The state subpoenaed two fight participants, Flake and Juliauna Owens, who defied the order and did not testify. They were sought under writs of attachment that authorize law enforcement officers to detain a witness under subpoena to secure testimony at trial.
The jury deliberated for about seven hours, split by a night at home, before indicating in two notes to Judge Lee Gabriel that the panel was unable to reach a verdict. The judge on July 17 granted St. John’s motion for a mistrial.
Earlier two jurors held hands as they walked out of the jury box after receiving from the judge a final instruction to continue to deliberate.
The judge’s written instructions to the jury had included advisories on self-defense and defense of a third party.
As it mulled the evidence, the panel requested access to the surveillance video exhibits, and a reading of the court reporter’s record of Zhahn Hawkins’ testimony on the position of Jones’ gun. The jury also asked of the judge a question on the state’s burden of proof with respect to a defendant’s self-defense argument, which Gabriel responded she could not answer.
“He killed this man to save his life, and the law says you can do that,” St. John said in his closing argument of the defendant.
“I would love to have Roderick’s gun,” Akinpelu said in the state’s closing argument in reference to the firearm that has not been recovered. It is of little significance, however, because the surveillance video makes clear that Jones returned fire, the prosecutor said.
After Judge Gabriel declared the mistrial, the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office offered a 20-year plea agreement to Hawkins that he declined.
Hawkins remains under indictment. The district attorney’s office will likely present the case to a different jury, Gabriel, who presides in an auxiliary state district court, told the first jury. If he is convicted, a jury would assess punishment at five to 99 years, or life, in prison. Zhahn Hawkins is 22.
Because the defendant elected to testify in the trial’s guilt-innocence phase, the state could explore, as the jury listened, his alleged gang membership. Fort Worth police in October 2021 documented Zhahn Hawkins as a Five Deuce Hoova Crips set street gang member.
This story was originally published July 23, 2025 at 11:49 AM.
