The
second of two men responsible for the 2018 drive-by shooting death of
7-year-old Jazmine Barnes has been sentenced to life in prison without parole
after being convicted of capital murder, Harris County District Attorney Kim
Ogg announced Friday.
Larry
Demetricus Woodruffe, 27, was automatically sentenced after being convicted by
a Harris County jury. He is the second of two men convicted of killing the
child on Dec. 30, 2018. The other has
already pleaded guilty.
“The
death of little Jazmine Barnes devastated our entire community, and everyone
connected to this case worked very long and very hard to ensure her killers
were brought to justice,” Ogg said.
Jazmine
and three of her siblings were passengers in their mother’s Dodge Avenger when
they left a Wal-Mart near their home in northeast Harris County. Woodruffe was
riding in a car driven by Eric Black when Woodruffe opened fire on the family’s
vehicle, which Woodruffe and Black apparently thought belonged to a rival they
had clashed with earlier in the night. Jazmine has hit and killed. Her mother
was wounded by a bullet to the shoulder.
Black
pleaded guilty in exchange for his testimony against Woodruffe. A judge will
determine his sentence, which has been capped at 35 years in prison.
“Cases
where children are killed are always exceptionally hard,” said Assistant
District Attorney Alycia Harvey, who prosecuted the case. “We are grateful to
the jury, who endured the heart-wrenching testimony and delivered justice for
Jazmine.”