2 men sentenced in killing of Fort Worth grandfather who was unintended target
His grandson, Roy Browner, was in a dispute with Browner's ex-girlfriend and was upset that she had a new boyfriend. The fractured former couple spent a day in September 2022 arguing about custody of their son. Browner and his grandfather drove the ex-girlfriend's daughter to an apartment in Arlington.
Browner and Bradley returned to south Fort Worth in a Cadillac.
Bradley wanted something to eat from a Wendy's restaurant, and his grandson steered into the drive-thru line. There, according to the account Browner described to Fort Worth police detectives, a sport utility vehicle pulled next to them. A back passenger opened fire. The detectives, Kyle Sullivan and Matt Anderson, concluded that the shooter was Xavier Bacon, the new boyfriend.
Bacon shot Bradley, who was 60, in the head and he died in the Cadillac's front passenger seat.
In the minutes before the killing, Bacon and Johnathan Banks, who was driving the SUV from which Bacon fired, stalked Browner and Bradley, following them from an apartment building where they stopped to pick up the grandfather's wallet to the restaurant, according to surveillance video reviewed by police.
Bacon and Banks were indicted on murder in the killing.
In a plea agreement with the state, Banks, who is 38, on Friday pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of failure to report a felony and was sentenced by Judge Steven Jumes to two years of deferred probation.
Bacon, who is 23, on Feb. 19 pleaded guilty to murder, and Judge Jumes sentenced him to 20 years in prison. Jumes presides in the 485th District Court in Tarrant County.
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Banks admitted to following Browner and told the detectives that Bacon was the only person in the back seat of his SUV when he was driving in the Wendy's parking lot in the 2100 block of Sycamore School Road. Banks said he heard gunshots but indicated he did not know their source, according to an arrest warrant affidavit supporting the suspects' arrest that recounts the Fort Worth Police Department Homicide Unit's investigation.
Detectives said they found in the back passenger door cup holder of Banks' SUV a fired cartridge casing that is of the same brand as the cartridge casings that were found in the Wendy's parking lot.
In his first interview with Detectives Sullivan and Anderson, Bacon said he was at work in Irving at the time of the homicide and was not involved in the shooting. In another interview after his arrest, Bacon admitted to the shooting and said that Banks was driving him, according to an affidavit.
In a handwritten motion that he prepared from jail before he pleaded guilty, Bacon asserted a self-defense argument. Bacon wrote that Browner was jealous and intended to destroy the new relationship.
Browner began to follow Bacon 'everywhere he went,' and was following him at the time of the killing, Bacon wrote.
'He had a firearm in his hand pointing it at [me],' Bacon wrote of Browner.
Defense attorney Steve Gordon was appointed to represent Bacon. Defense attorney Kathy Lowthorp was appointed to represent Banks. Tarrant County Assistant District Attorney Chris Dewitt prosecuted the case.
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