Jury finds man guilty in murder of transgender woman

He arranged online to pay her for sex, now faces five to 99 years for the January 2016 shooting death.

As the guilty verdict was announced in court late Monday afternoon, Monica Loera’s sisters embraced and broke into tears.

After four hours of deliberation, Travis County jurors convicted JonCasey Rowell of murder in the January 2016 death of Loera at her North Austin home. year when he killed the transgender woman after arranging online to pay her for sex. Loera, 43, who made the transition to a woman in her 20s, was well-known in the local LGBT community.

Rowell had claimed he fired his gun in self-defense. The first-degree felony carries a possible term of five to 99 years.

The shooting happened about 2:30 a.m. that January night after Rowell went to Loera’s doora third time. Testimony at trial indicated Rowell had left the house intending to get condoms, then noticed that he had left his vest, phone and keys inside the home on East Powell Lane. On Rowell’s first return to the door, Loera gave him those items.

Agitated, Rowell came back to the door because he thought Loera had kept his wallet. The wallet later turned out to be in a vest pocket. Left behind, for reasons that never became clear, was Rowell’s Austin Community College ID card.

Whathappened onthat last visit to the door remained in dispute, other than Rowell admitting that he had shot Loera in the neck after she opened the door. Rowell fled, returned to his wifeand their 10-dayold child in Childress, and then came back to Central Texas three days later because he was working in Georgetown. He was arrested less than a week after Loera’s death.

Rowell’s defense centered on the argument that he felt threatened when Loera opened the door. He claimed that Loera shouted through that door that she had a baseball bat, something witnesses said did not occur. His lawyer, Jeff Senter, said Monday that the door “exploded” open and that Loera lunged at Rowell. The shot traveled less than a foot before hitting Loera, prosecutors said.

“What is he to do?” Senter said in his closing argument. “He’s been toldhe’s going to be hit with a baseball bat.”