Inset left: Frank Falcon (San Antonio Police Department). Inset right: Linda Webster (Obituary). Background: The house where Falcon allegedly shot and killed Webster in San Antonio, Tex. (Google Maps).
The trial of a Texas man who allegedly shot and killed his own mother in front of his young daughter got underway this week.
Frank Falcon, 47, stands accused of one count of capital murder, according to Bexar County court records.
The underlying incident occurred on July 14, 2022, at a house on Gillette Boulevard in San Antonio. The shooting took the life of 66-year-old Linda Webster and injured her husband, 67-year-old Mark Webster, the defendant”s stepfather.
Falcon’s then-9-year-old daughter was also in the house at the time of the violence but was not harmed.
On the day of the incident, officers arrived around 2 a.m. to find Linda Webster dead and Mark Webster suffering from a gunshot wound to his head. The defendant was initially arrested on an additional count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, but that count was dropped when Falcon was indicted in October 2022.
Prosecutors say Falcon killed his mother over an eviction after he reneged on an agreement to pay property taxes on the South Side residence, according to a courtroom report by San Antonio-based ABC affiliate KSAT.
To hear the state tell it, Falcon was allowed to live in his mother’s other property rent-free so long as he paid taxes. But in 2022, the Websters received a $10,000 bill showing the taxes had not been paid in four years, so the couple decided to evict the then-44-year-old man.
On several occasions, the surviving stepfather identified Falcon as the shooter — though some recollections were clearer than others.
During a pretrial hearing outside the presence of the jury, Mark Webster answered defense questions through tears, according to a courtroom report by the San Antonio Express-News.
The witness said he had trouble with his memory but that he would be surprised if had not identified the defendant to the police.
And indeed, he had, authorities say.
During his initial 911 call, Mark Webster said it was “probably Frank Falcon” who committed the crime; the defense latched onto that equivocation in a failed attempt to suppress evidence. As it turned out, the witness also later told a detective he was not sure who the killer was and described the shooter as a “black shadow.”
Jurors, however, later saw police-worn body camera footage in which Mark Webster said: “I think it was Frank Falcon, my stepson.”
During opening statements on Tuesday, prosecutor Lauren Scott also said the bullet recovered from Linda Webster’s body matched a gun recovered from Falcon’s vehicle after he was arrested. The defense, for its part, waived an opening statement.
On Wednesday, jurors also heard directly from one of the responding officers who commented on Falcon’s initial appearance at the scene.
“What stood out was he had black latex gloves on,” the officer said, according to KSAT.
By the time of the defendant’s arrest, the gloves were on the ground, the officer told the jury. Those gloves were shown in court.
Jurors also learned that Falcon fled the scene and had to be taken down with a Taser-like device before he was arrested.
Another failed defense effort to suppress concerned a letter sent to the Webster home after the shooting — with the return address of the Bexar County jail. Mark Webster said he assumed the letter came from the defendant.
The letter was addressed to Linda Webster’s granddaughter and read: “I am sorry for what I did to your grandma.”
If convicted, Falcon faces an automatic sentence of life in prison.
