A three-year resident of a west Houston apartment complex shot two leasing agents after an argument over his leasing agreement "caused him to snap," a prosecutor said in court Wednesday.
Derrick Jackson, a 53-year-old Army veteran, told Houston police investigators that the argument last Thursday upset him as one of the Park at Woodlake leasing agents started speaking in Spanglish - a mix of Spanish and English. Jackson then opened fire in the leasing office when one of the agents, Rosa Linda Ybarra, 67, talked back to him.
"Well, you signed the lease - didn't you?" she said, according to the prosecutor's account of Jackson's statement.
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Jackson shot and killed Ybarra and then shot the second leasing agent, Felix Antonio Jimenez-Macz, 47, twice as the employee ran away, said the prosecutor, Simone Colson. Jackson told authorities that he stabbed Jimenez-Macz when he didn't immediately die.
Surveillance footage from the leasing office at 9545 Ella Lee Lane showed a man entering the leasing office around 5:30 p.m. and leaving about 12 minutes later. Jackson told authorities he was the man in the video. Another resident later found Jimenez-Macz and Ybarra after they had been shot.
Police arrested Jackson at a hotel Friday. He had shell casings linked to the shooting at the time of his arrest, according to authorities.
The prosecutor, Colson, said she did not know what the argument over Jackson's lease was about. She outlined the allegations that led to the capital murder charge against Jackson as several members of Ybarra's family observed his court appearance from the gallery.
The family members later declined to comment.
The Harris County District Attorney's Office initially sought a hearing to hold Jackson without bail until trial, but Colson asked for bail to be set instead.
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Judge Josh Hill in the 232nd District Court ordered Jackson held on $1 million, which prosecutors requested. He noted that Jackson lacked a criminal history - which contradicts the prosecution's criminal complaint alleging that Jackson was previously convicted in 1998 of a drug charge.
Colson said the decades-old charge belonged to a different person with the same name and they'd correct the complaint.
One of Jackson's defense attorneys, Chauntelle Wood White, said Jackson retired from the U.S. Army and had been in Houston since 2017.
Jackson served in the Army and U.S. Army Reserves as an infantryman and aviation ops specialist from 1993 until 2017, reaching the rank of sergeant first class, according to federal records. He had one deployment to Iraq in 2008 and two more in Afghanistan in 2009 and 2010.
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This article originally published at Army veteran 'snapped' and fatally shot two Houston apartment complex leasing agents, prosecutor says.