Elders found guilty of capital murder in woman’s shooting
After deliberating for about two hours Thursday morning, a North Texas jury has found Jerry Don Elders, 31, guilty of capital murder in the April 2021 killing of Robin Waddell. Elders, who also was accused of shooting a cop during a traffic stop the same day, now faces life in prison without parole or the death penalty.
Elders should have been found guilty of murder, not capital murder, his defense attorneys argued to the jury in their closing statements Thursday morning.
The prosecution asked the 12 Johnson County residents to find Elders guilty of capital murder. In the upcoming punishment phase of the trial, prosecutors are expected to ask for a death sentence.
Elders was indicted on a capital murder charge after authorities said he shot Burleson police Officer Joshua Lott three times during a traffic stop in 2021, fled and then kidnapped Waddell at her home, stole her truck, killed her and pushed her out of her truck outside the Joshua Police Department.
Jurors were instructed that they could consider the lesser charges of murder, aggravated robbery and aggravated kidnapping, but they did not need to deliberate on those charges after voting to convict Elders of capital murder. A murder conviction would have carried a penalty of 20 years to 99 years or life in prison, with the possibility of parole.
The jury was given its final instructions and sent to deliberate around 10 a.m., about an hour and a half after court resumed Thursday. At around 10:20 a.m., jurors sent a note requesting copies of photographs presented in the trial, along with a video of Elders confessing to killing Waddell in an interrogation by the Texas Rangers. The jury reached its verdict shortly after noon.
Prosecutors began their punishment case Thursday and expect full days of testimony Friday and Tuesday, with a weekend recess to include Monday. The defense is expected to present its case on punishment starting Wednesday. Visiting Judge Lee Gabriel urged attorneys from both sides to have everything wrapped up so that the trial can conclude next week.
During closing arguments, defense attorney Bob Gill told the jury that Elders is guilty of murder. He doesn’t deny shooting and killing 60-year-old Robin Waddell, but does deny that he had the intention to kill her when he shot her, the defense said.
Elders panicked, Gill said, and fired two shots without thinking of the consequences. He didn’t intend to kill her, and the prosecution didn’t prove the intent to kill her, Gill argued.
Waddell was killed after authorities said Elders, after shooting Lott and abandoning his own car, hid in her truck then kidnapped her at gunpoint when she discovered him. In closing arguments, the prosecution said Elders made her drive, telling her to get him out of Johnson County. But when she slammed the truck through the security gate at the back of the Joshua Police Department, both the prosecution and defense agree that he shot and killed her.
“I’m not going to stand up here and tell you that something didn’t happen,” Gill told jurors in his closing statements. “That Jerry Don Elders didn’t cause the death of Ms. Waddell. He did that.”
It would be difficult for the defense to argue that Elders didn’t kill Waddell. When the first witness testified in the trial April 15, jurors were presented with a video of Elders confessing.
They just disagreed on whether he had the intent to kill required for the capital murder conviction.
“He panicked when she drove through that fence,” Gill said. “He didn’t intend for that to happen.”
The prosecution argued he was panicked, but he was also angry and had intent.
Prosecutors told the jury that Waddell “took him to the people he hates the most: cops.” That’s why he shot her, they told the jury. It was panic, but also rage. The prosecution said Waddell was shot in the vehicle, pushed out of the driver’s door, then shot again when she stood up.
The prosecution said Elders was aware of his actions, clear minded and had intent based on the knowledge he had about what he’d done and that law enforcement had identified him.
Gill painted a different picture.
“This wasn’t a wellplanned operation,” Gill told the jury. “This was Jerry the bumbler out there running from the local police.”
He also described it as “Keystone cops and Keystone Jerry out there running around Johnson County.”
Gill said the evidence didn’t support a conviction of capital murder. Capital murder requires intent to kill in the commission of another felony, such as aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery, the lesser charges Elders faced if the jury had found him not guilty of capital murder.
The defense argued that Elders wasn’t as clearminded as the prosecution suggests. Gill told jurors that Elders’ mind was addled by drugs when everything happened.
“This isn’t the crime of the century,” Gill said. “This is some guy in a narcotic haze running around reacting and reacting and reacting.”
The state argued in closing statements that Elders couldn’t have been high at the time, telling jurors he fell asleep in Waddell’s truck while hiding from police, before she found him there. That, they posited, was a sign that he wasn’t high on methamphetamine. It should also tell jurors that Elders wasn’t experiencing remorse for what he did, they said.
Gill argued that the way investigators handled the case from the beginning didn’t suggest they thought of it as a capital murder. Investigators didn’t take notes in the field. Some didn’t write reports. A civilian investigator with no training in crime scene investigation or evidence collection was sent to photograph Waddell’s body and collect her clothing and other evidence on her.
All of that, Gill said, proves that they didn’t think the case amounted to capital murder.
He said he wouldn’t argue that Elders didn’t shoot Lott during a traffic stop, but reminded the jury that Lott’s shooting wasn’t the case they were there to consider.
The prosecution told the jury Elders brought a capital murder guilty verdict on himself.
“He has earned this verdict through the choices he made,” the state told the jury.
Gill disagreed.
“I’m going to break the No. 1 rule of defense attorneys and tell you that he is guilty,” he said. “Of murder.”