Larry Woodruffe Given Life Sentence In Drive-By Shooting That Killed 7-Year-Old Jazmine Barnes
In 2018, 7-year-old Jazmine Barnes was killed in a drive-by shooting in Houston, Texas. Police say that Jazmine was shot in the head as she rode in a vehicle with her mom and three sisters.
On Friday, Larry Woodruffe was found guilty of capital murder. A sentence of life in prison without parole was automatically given. It only took jurors five and a half hours to decide on the guilty verdict.
Prosecutors displayed, in court, a bullet wound to the neck that Jazmine had suffered during the December 2018 incident.
Woodruffe’s lawyers argued that police never looked into Jazmine’s sister’s claim about a white man in a red pickup truck. They say that civil rights influencers gave tips that made them look away from that possibility.
This week, Eric Black Jr., testified against his friend, Woodruffe. Authorities say that Black was driving the vehicle that was involved in the shooting. Woodruffe’s attorneys say Black is an “untrustworthy drug dealer.”
On the contrary, prosecutors provided DNA that matched Woodruffe’s on the gun and bullet fragments that were located where Jazmine was killed during the drive-by shooting.
Black accepted a plea deal in the case after being charged with murder and testifying against Woodruffe. Because of that, he won’t spend more than 35 years in prison.
