US Marine veteran convicted over stabbing murder of 11-year-old Houston school boy

A US man has been convicted within the deadly stabbing of an 11-year-old boy because the baby walked dwelling from college.

Jurors deliberated for about three hours earlier than discovering 33-year-old Andre Timothy Jackson responsible of homicide within the dying of Josue Flores in Houston, Texas in 2016.

Jackson, who has all the time maintained his innocence, faces life in jail.

Authorities say the sixth grader was killed as he walked dwelling from a science membership assembly at a faculty simply north of downtown Houston on Could 17, 2016.

He was solely two blocks from dwelling when he was stabbed greater than 20 instances.

Witnesses instructed officers they heard loud screams and noticed the boy combating a person.

The boy collapsed on the grass close to the sidewalk and the person ran away.

Throughout closing arguments yesterday, prosecutors instructed jurors that the boy’s DNA was discovered on Jackson’s jacket.

“The affordable conclusion right here is that the sufferer’s DNA is on Andre Jackson’s jacket as a result of he murdered Josue Flores,” Harris County Assistant District Lawyer Chris Condon stated.

“Andre Jackson is a killer.

“He killed a toddler and the proof is true right here guys.”

Police say the jacket was discovered within the room on the Salvation Military shelter the place Jackson had been dwelling in on the time of the killing.

Surveillance video from the day of Josue’s dying confirmed Jackson carrying the jacket.

However Jerome Godinich, certainly one of Jackson’s attorneys, advised to jurors that the quantity of DNA discovered on the jacket was so small that it may have been transferred onto it by another person on the shelter.

Jackson’s attorneys stated he didn’t match the bodily description of the suspect seen by individuals who witnessed the killing and Jackson had no historical past of violence.

“It’s a textbook instance of how harmless folks get convicted,” Justin Keiter, one other of Jackson’s attorneys, stated.

Jackson stated in a YouTube video posted in Could 2019: “I’m not Josue’s killer. I’m not a killer.”

The Marine Corps veteran was first arrested weeks after Josue’s killing.

However prosecutors dropped the cost in 2017, saying there wasn’t sufficient proof to strive Jackson or uphold a conviction.

He was rearrested in 2019 after prosecutors stated newly examined DNA proof linked him to the killing.

Jackson wasn’t the primary particular person charged within the case.

A 31-year-old man with a protracted prison historical past was charged days after the killing, however that cost was dropped when detectives discovered proof to help his alibi.