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Murderer gets 46 years in prison for shooting black Fort Worth man after racist tirade

Kevin Ashley Parnell, 39, was convicted of murder and evidence tampering for shooting 28-year-old Sammie Dewayne Jones in the face and discarding the gun he used.

A jury sentenced a Benbrook man Friday to 46 years in prison for fatally shooting the roommate of his stepdaughter's ex-boyfriend after a racist tirade on Labor Day 2017.

Kevin Ashley Parnell
Kevin Ashley Parnell(Tarrant County Sheriff's Department)

Kevin Ashley Parnell, 39, was convicted of murder and evidence tampering for shooting 28-year-old Sammie Dewayne Jones in the face.

Parnell reportedly blamed Jones' roommate Jordan Briggs, a black man who had dated Parnell's stepdaughter, when she was charged with prostitution.

Before arriving at Briggs' Fort Worth home with a shotgun, Parnell sent Briggs a series of messages calling him the N-word and threatening to hang and whip him "like the slave you are," according to an arrest-warrant affidavit.

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Jones told Parnell that Briggs wasn't home and tried to calm him down, Briggs later told police, but Parnell continued ranting about black people, pulled out a gun and called Jones "boy."

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He then shot Jones in the face and fled. Jones was pronounced dead at the home.

Officials arrested Parnell the next day at his workplace in Arlington.

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Tarrant County officials said Parnell attempted to destroy evidence of his crime by deleting text messages he sent to Briggs, throwing the gun off an overpass and burning the clothes he was wearing.

"The jury recognized the complete senselessness of this murder," prosecutor Tracey Kapsidelis said in a statement. "These are no longer the days of old, when disputes were settled in Hell's Half Acre with a bullet."