A spokesman for the Harris County District Attorney’s Office said prosecutors dropped the murder case, and instead chose to try Onyeri for an unrelated aggravated robbery.
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He and a second suspect, who has not been identified or captured, is accused of killing Jacobi Alexander, 31, outside a Houston apartment complex on May 18, KHOU-TV reported. No motive was given for the murder and the complaint didn’t specify how Onyeri may be linked to it.
That’s how Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo described last Friday’s shooting at the home of Judge Julie Kocurek. While Acevedo wouldn’t go into the extent of her injuries, he did say “She is a tough woman, she is a strong woman, she is a healthy person”.
Court records show the judge issued a warrant for Onyeri’s arrest on August 28, in a fraud case.
Acevedo wouldn’t comment on the judge’s condition, but said, “We’re very hopeful that she will recover”.
Late Tuesday, the Calcasieu Parish District Attorney’s Office told the I-Team that Onyeri was a fugitive when he was arrested in Houston Monday night. A garbage bag was placed in front of Kocurek’s gated driveway on Scenic Drive and when her son got out of the auto to remove the bag, the shooter fired several shots into the driver’s side window.
Onyeri has a criminal record dating to 2006, with offenses that include fraudulently using another person’s identity or bank cards.
Onyeri violated his probation twice since being sentenced in that fraud case, once for using counterfeit hundred-dollar bills, and most recently for using a stolen debit card in Louisiana. But he’s also been charged with unlawful possession of a weapon, marijuana possession and evading detention.
Eric Williams, a former Kaufman County justice of the peace, was later convicted of capital murder in Cynthia McLelland’s death.
However, that plan backfired when a jury found Onyeri not guilty of that robbery in 2013.
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The Gulf Coast Violent Offenders Task Force took Onyeri into custody on Monday on Bissonnet near South Dairy Ashford Road.
