Traffic death ends Blue Mound shooting case

Ryan Hoehn was shot in the neck March 18 as he started to open the front door to his home on Globe Avenue.

He survived, but police announced Thursday that they are closing the case against his assailant because Hoehn, 19, died this summer in a traffic accident and no other witnesses have come forward.

“The case isn’t going to be pursued because our victim is deceased,” said Police Chief Barry Hinkle. “We worked hard on this case but we don’t have our victim anymore.”

The closure leaves Hoehn’s assailant free. The shooter that day was never identified.

The shooting call in the 600 block of Globe Avenue that day came in shortly before 2 a.m.

Police found Hoehn shot in the neck inside the house. Two 16-year-olds, a boy and a girl, also were there.

Earlier, Hoehn had argued with two other people, who then left and came back with two more, police said.

“The witnesses told investigators that they only heard a loud bang,” Hinkle said in a March interview with the Star-Telegram.

The younger teens saw Hoehn had been wounded and called 911. Police interviewed the two juveniles and then released them to their parents.

Officers were unable to even determine what kind of weapon was used.

“The suspect fired a single round,” Hinkle said Thursday.

Hoehn was hospitalized for several days and the investigation continued for weeks.

Eventually, one of the four people who stood outside that day was arrested on a drug possession charge involving marijuana found after he was stopped a few weeks after the shooting, Hinkle said. Police did not release that suspect’s name.

The arrest didn’t help the shooting case.

“No one came forward to say so-and-so shot through the door,” Hinkle said. “And the door was closed so our victim didn’t know who shot him.”

Then Hoehn died in July in a single car wreck. His car burst into flames after it crashed in the 9300 block of Ten Mile Bridge Road near Eagle Mountain Lake in northwest Tarrant County, authorities said.

By an odd coincidence, the shooting at the home on Globe Avenue was the second for the family in seven years. On Sept. 3, 2008, Ryan Hoehn’s parents, Keith and Kellie Hoehn, battled two suspects who burst into their house in what police described as a home invasion.

Keith Hoehn managed to get a shotgun away from one suspect and fired. Dakota Benoit, 20, of Richland Hills was killed and John Pierson, then 25, of Haltom City, was critically wounded.

Ryan Hoehn, then 12, grabbed his little sister, ran to a closet and hid, armed with a pellet gun, his father said in a 2008 interview with the Star-Telegram.

Keith and Kellie Hoehn, could not be reached Thursday for comment about either incident.

This report includes material from Star-Telegram archives.

This story was originally published September 3, 2015 at 12:36 PM with the headline "Traffic death ends Blue Mound shooting case."