Darryl Roberts guilty of firearm charge, 2nd degree murder in 2023 Market St. shooting

From Local 3 News: UPDATE: The jury has reached two guilty verdicts in the trials of Darryl Roberts, convicting him of the death of 38-year-old Christopher Wright on Tuesday.

A jury found Roberts guilty of second degree murder in the death of the Baylor School alum on September 28, 2023.

Roberts shot Wright on Market Street near Patten Towers.

Roberts was originally charged with first-degree murder.

The jury chose to convict him on a lesser charge.

Roberts still faced a second verdict for the charge of Possession of a Firearm by a Convicted Felon over the shooting of Wright.

Roberts' felony conviction was in 2009 for aggravated assault and he was given a suspended sentence of 11 months and 29 days.

Roberts waived his right to testify in a second trial for the firearm charge before the first verdict was read.

Following brief arguments from the prosecution and defense, Judge Boyd Patterson read instructions to the jury, which took only a few minutes to deliberate before finding Roberts guilty of Possession of a Firearm by a Convicted Felon.

During closing arguments, the state spent time trying to convince the jury that the death of Chris Wright was premeditated.

“For his actions to be intentional, he had to act with a desire to end Chris Wright’s Life. Look at the video. Look at the intentional act of standing up, pulling his gun and raising it to someone’s forehead. That is proof of his desire,” the state argued.

The state went on to say there is nothing else that could have happened from Roberts pointing his gun at Wright’s forehead besides killing him.

Examples were presented to the jury of legally amounts to premeditation.

“If you remember we talked about this with the yellow light and running threw a yellow light. You know you need to get through it, or you know you need to stop at it and then you act to press the gas down or the brake. You can reflect what happens if you press the gas down you go through the yellow light,” the state argued.

The defense spent time trying to convince the jury that Roberts was on auto pilot.

“You got to experience a fight or flight, something we don’t do all the time. I remember going to a Halloween haunted house and somebody jumped out and that’s why you go, and I punched him right in the face. I didn’t think about punching him in the face,” the defense argued.

The defense also argued that the worse Roberts should be charged with is voluntary manslaughter.

“All voluntary manslaughter has to do is provoke a reasonable person to act in an irrational manner. It doesn’t have to cause a reasonable person to kill someone. It doesn’t have to be that level of complication. It just has to be the provocation that takes this case out of the cool, calm collected, coldblooded planning,” the defense argued said.