Retrial ends with beau not guilty of 2016 killing

After enduring two trials, 34-year-old Michael Enoch was found not guilty Wednesday of gunning down a man who had been arguing with his girlfriend in 2016. A Bexar County jury deliberated for three hours before reaching the verdict in Judge Laura Parker’s court, a year after another jury couldn’t reach a unanimous decision, forcing a mistrial. Attorneys Robert Gebbia and Daniel De La Garza argued on Enoch’s behalf, saying that he had maintained his innocence for the last two years. “I think that a lot of people would’ve backed down and said I'll take the plea bargain,” De La Garza said. “But he said ‘I want to have a jury to find out what they think is right and find out what actually happened.’ ” He said jurors looked at every piece of evidence, and that prosecutors did a fantastic job, but that “this just wasn’t the case for them to win.” “This should have never been retried. It should have been a dismissal,” De La Garza said. “But they do what they do and I think that the state did a great job, but they just came up short in this case.” In October 2016, a man interrupted an argument 29-year-old Darrel Keith Gentry Jr. had been having with his girlfriend, Tomisha Tomlin, about their vehicle in an apartment complex’s parking lot in the 1300 block of Rigsby. After a brief exchange, police said the suspect fired two shots, fatally wounding Gentry. Two months after the killing, Enoch was identified by San Antonio police as a suspect in Gentry’s death when investigators received a tip via Crime Stoppers. Police had a few witnesses, including Tomlin, who said that they saw Enoch at the scene. Tomlin testified Tuesday. De La Garza said it was a wrongful identification that police ran with after receiving the tip. “It was always a ‘whodunit’ kind of thing,” he said. During Enoch’s second trial, which began Tuesday, De La Garza pointed to one crucial moment in the incident that ruled out his client as the shooter: The suspect uttered Tomlin’s nickname, “Missy.” In the incident, Gentry was cited as saying “That gun don’t phase me,” at which point the suspect said “Move, Missy,” before shots were fired. De La Garza said Enoch didn’t know Tomlin or her nickname. “That was not Michael Enoch,” he said. “That was someone who knew Missy.” De La Garza said cases like this are the ones that can lead to wrongful convictions. Enoch, who cannot be tried in this case again because of double jeopardy, is entitled to clearing his record of this case, his lawyer said. After two years in custody, Enoch was set to be released from the Bexar County Jail on Wednesday night, De La Garza said. “I think we need justice for Mr. Gentry,” he said. “And I think the real killer is still out there, and we need to go find him.”