A Texas man has pleaded guilty in connection with the 2021 murder of 4-year-old Cash Gernon.
According to FOX 4, jury selection was scheduled to begin Monday morning at the Frank Crowley Courts Building in Dallas, in the case against Darriynn Brown, 22.
The defense was expected to argue the insanity defense, in an attempt to spare Brown, who was 18 when the murder the occurred, from getting the death penalty.
COURT TV reports that Brown pleaded guilty Monday to murder and waived his right to a jury trial. A judge sentenced him to life in prison.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Brown abducted Cash at around 5 a.m. on May 15, 2021, from his bedroom inside a home near Dallas.
DNA evidence, along with security footage, placed the defendant at the scene and captured him taking the victim from the room, where Cash had been sleeping near his twin brother.
Investigators said Brown took the boy to a trail in the neighborhood, fatally stabbed him, and then placed his body in a street.
A woman found Cash’s body later that morning in a pool of blood about eight blocks from the home.
In 2022, Magistrate Judge Farrel Chapman found Darriynn Brown incompetent to stand trial. Chapman ordered that Brown be treated by the North Texas State Hospital System.
Brown reportedly has schizophrenia, and said that he was hearing voices when he abducted the boy.
Brown spent a year in the state hospital, with a judge declaring this year that he’s now competent to stand trial.
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[Feature Photo: Cash Gernon/Family Handout]
