Maurice Kelso Smith (Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office) and Darionne Burley (Gregory W. Spencer Funeral Directors)
A 32-year-old man in Texas will spend the remainder of his days behind bars for killing his 26-year-old pregnant girlfriend, shooting her in the back of the head only a few weeks after the couple held a gender reveal party for their soon-to-be twin boys, both of whom also died as a result of the shooting, records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
District Court Judge Robert P. Brotherton on Monday ordered Maurice Kelso Smith to serve a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 2020 slayings of Darionne Burley and the unborn kids.
The sentence was formally handed down after a jury in Tarrant County found Smith guilty of capital murder in the fatal shooting. In capital murder cases where the state chooses not to pursue the death penalty, defendants convicted serve a mandatory life sentence without parole.
According to a report from Fort Worth, Texas, CBS affiliate KTVT, officers with the Mansfield Police Department on June 29, 2020, responded to a call regarding a woman who had been carjacked at gunpoint in the 1600 block of the North U.S. Highway 287 frontage road. The victim told the emergency dispatcher that the carjacker — later identified as Smith — had arrived in a different car, abandoned it, and then taken her car.
First responders made contact with the carjacking victim and then located the Honda Civic Smith had been driving before stealing the other woman’s car. Inside the Civic, police said they found Burley, who appeared to have suffered a gunshot wound to the back of her head, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Detectives identified Smith as Burley’s boyfriend and dispatched units to his address. When they arrived at his home, police reportedly said they found Smith destroying physical evidence and attempting to clean the car he had just stolen. They also reportedly found Smith’s clothes covered in blood as well as a gun, which ballistics testing matched as the weapon that killed Burley.
Investigators said that Smith, a convicted felon, had a friend illegally purchase the gun for him the day before the shooting. The Star-Telegram reported that Burley chipped in about $250 for the weapon that would later kill her.
Smith shot and killed Burley following a “joyful gender reveal party,” according to a family member who testified at trial, KTVT reported.
Following his arrest, police took Smith to a hospital for a suspected overdose, but he was ultimately determined to be faking his intoxication as well as his claims of memory loss, The Dallas Morning News reported. The paper also reported that Smith was appealing his guilty verdict.
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