Jury finds husband of fired deputy guilty in choking outside of Denny’s
Railroad worker convicted of murder in death of 24-year-old man last year
Terry Bryan Thompson, a railroad worker and the husband of a fired sheriff ’s deputy, was convicted of murder Monday for placing a young Houston father in a lethal chokehold outside a Denny’s last year.
The jury found Thompson guilty of murder in the choking death of 24-yearold John Hernandez, a glass installer who was with his family at the Crosby-area restaurant last year when a fight broke out on Memorial Day weekend.
When the guilty verdict was read aloud in the courtroom, Thompson, 42, exhaled deeply and fell into his seat while one of his family members covered her mouth as if to stifle an exclamation.
Hernandez’s widow, parents and supporters packing the courtroom quietly wiped away tears as they watched Thompson being
handcuffed and led away to the Harris County Jail. He faces a sentence ranging from five years to life in prison when the punishment phase of the trial begins Tuesday.
“We just needed that closure, to see that that they were actually going to handcuff him and take him away like any other person,” said family member Diana Escalante. “Not someone who is married to someone who is part of the justice system.”
Escalante was referring to Thompson’s wife, an off-duty Harris County Sheriff’s deputy who helped hold Hernandez down on the pavement. She was fired by Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, and her trial is pending.
It is the second time the highprofile murder case against Thompson has gone to trial. In June, a first trial ended in a mistrial after the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict. In that trial, Thompson missed being acquitted by one vote, that of a juror who did not believe it was a case of self-defense.
The first trial was discouraging, members of Hernandez’s family said. But on Monday they said the guilty verdict was the outcome they wanted as they waited for the jury to consider the case during 12 hours of deliberations.
“We’re satisfied because justice was served, and he cannot be free after what he did,” Hernandez’s father, Ignacio Hernandez, said outside the courtroom.
None of Thompson’s supporters spoke after the verdict, nor did his attorney, Scot Courtney. Courtney has maintained that Thompson was acting in self-defense after being punched in the eye by Hernandez, who testimony showed was intoxicated. The confrontation was initiated by Thompson, who was angry that Hernandez was urinating in the Denny’s parking lot after 11 p.m. on May 28, 2017.
During an altercation, Thompson was hit in the face by Hernandez and received a black eye. He was able to quickly get on top of Hernandez and put him in a chokehold. Defense attorneys said Thompson maintained the hold on Hernandez because the younger
man never quit struggling. Medical experts testified Hernandez eventually lost consciousness because of a lack of air and blood flow and died days later in the hospital.
Prosecutors said Hernandez can be seen on Denny’s surveillance video “tapping out,” meaning he was done fighting.
Tom Berg, first assistant at the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, credited a new trial team of John Jordan and Sarah Mickelson Seeley with obtaining the conviction.
“I selected them because I thought they were the best we had, and they more than met our expectations,” Berg said.
Berg said prosecutors in the second trial had more time to prepare and there was a range of witnesses
availability .
Berg, noting that the DA’s office was criticized when Thompson and his wife were indicted, said Monday’s verdict was a vindication of that decision.
“We are content that this very diverse jury saw the evidence we saw and, based on that evidence, found Terry Bryan Thompson guilty of murder,” he said.
The jury, which is made up of nine women, two of whom are black, and three men, will reconvene Tuesday, when prosecutors are expected to ask them to sentence Thompson to decades in prison.
“We will be asking for a lot of time because he took another man’s life and we think it was unjustified,” Berg said. “But it will be the jury that tells us the view of
the community on what is a just sentence in this case.”
The case gained international attention when protests erupted after a 53-second cellphone video of the 13 minute altercation showed Hernandez face down on the concrete with Thompson on his back, his arm wrapped around the younger man’s neck.
Thompson’s wife, former Harris County Sheriff ’s deputy Chauna Thompson, can be seen on the video holding Hernandez down and yelling at him to stay down. She arrived after her husband and was in civilian clothes. She was fired days after the video surfaced and is awaiting trial on murder charges.
The trial, in state District Judge Kelli Johnson’s court, is in its third week.