Alicia Keaton (Harris County DA’s Office)
A 40-year-old woman in Texas will spend more than two decades behind bars for killing a 65-year-old man who used a wheelchair, moving into his home under the guise of assisting him with his daily living activities, then robbing him and strangling him to death on Christmas Day. District Court Judge Frank Aguilar on Thursday ordered Alicia Keator to serve a sentence of 25 years in a state correctional facility for the 2018 slaying of 65-year-old John Henry Fernandez, authorities announced.
“The elderly and disabled people in our community are extremely vulnerable to becoming victims of violence,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a statement following the sentencing hearing. “This couple took advantage of this man’s kindness and deserves to spend decades in prison.”
According to a news release from the DA’s Office, Keator and her boyfriend, 41-year-old Marcus Donnell Gilbert, who was also known as “Skunk,” both admitted to the horrific crime and pleaded guilty to the murder of Fernandez.
Marcus Donnell Gilbert (Harris County DA’s Office)
Maintenance workers at the apartment complex where Fernandez lived on Jan. 2, 2018, discovered his body inside his apartment, the release states. He was found “with his hands and feet bound and mouth taped shut,” prosecutors said, adding that “he had also been suffocated.”
Authorities say that Fernandez required assistance with daily living activities — assistance that Keator had agreed to provide in exchange for a place to live. Keator had been living in Fernandez’s home for about a month before the elderly man’s death.
“Instead of helping, [Keator] allowed her boyfriend to routinely visit, culminating in the planned robbery and killing of Fernandez on Christmas Day 2017,” the release states. “After concerned neighbors alerted apartment management that Fernandez had not been heard from for several days, maintenance workers found his body locked inside his bedroom.”
Both Keator and Gilbert were arrested by officers with the Baytown Police Department shortly after Fernandez’s body was discovered. They were initially charged with one count each of capital murder.
Earlier this year, Gilbert reached a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to one count of murder in exchange for a sentence of 60 years in prison.
Keator had not entered into an agreement with the DA’s Office before entering her guilty plea. However, prosecutors said that during her sentencing hearing, Judge Aguilar learned that Keator had “provided critical evidence against her co-defendant and had agreed to testify against him, even without the promise of leniency.”
“The judge noted that if Keator had not fully cooperated, she would have been sentenced to a much longer prison term,” the release states.
Both Keator and Gilbert must serve at least half of their prison sentences before they will be eligible for parole.
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