Texas Execution Information Center

Execution Report: Desmond Jennings

Desmond Jennings
Desmond Jennings
Executed on 16 November 1999

Desmond Domnique Jennings, 28, was executed by lethal injection on 16 November 1999 in Huntsville, Texas, for murdering two people.

On 27 December 1993, Jennings, then 23, was driving with Eric Gardner and John Freeman in Freeman's car after midnight in Fort Worth. Freeman parked on the street in front of a drug house. He and Jennings exited the car and walked toward the house, while Gardner waited in the car.

As the two men entered the house, Sylvester Walton, 44, asked them what they wanted. Jennings shot Walton in the face. They went further into the house, saw Wonda Matthews, 27, raising herself on the bed, and Jennings shot her in the head. Next, he returned to Walton and rifled through his pockets, removing a pouch. As the two men were leaving the house, Jennings heard Matthews moaning, so he shot her a second time.

Jennings and Freeman then returned to the car and drove away. Jennings pulled out the pouch he had taken from Walton and opened it. When he saw that it contained only thirteen cents and some empty capsules, he threw it out the window. They then drove to some apartments where they picked up two more friends.

The crime scene was discovered later that day by four people who went to the house to buy heroin. Emergency personnel were summoned. They recovered one bullet from Walton's body and two from Matthews'.

John Freeman was arrested seven days later while driving a car that matched the description of a vehicle used in a robbery. When the car was inventoried, a loaded .32-caliber handgun was discovered in the trunk. It was matched through ballistics testing with the bullets that were recovered from Sylvester Walton and Wonda Matthews' bodies.

At Jennings' trial, Eric Gardner testified that Freeman and Jennings picked him up and were giving him a ride home when Freeman said that he wanted some heroin and mentioned a drug house he knew of. Jennings suggested, "Let's jack the house." Gardner said that he objected, which is why he stayed in the car. He testified that after Jennings and Freeman entered the house, he heard two shots, then saw the two men walk calmly out of the house. They were inside for only two or three minutes. After they joined Price and Walker, Gardner said that Jennings called him a coward.

Robert Anderson, another friend of Jennings's, testified that Jennings spent the night with him. When he observed that Jennings had blood on his tennis shoes, Jennings said that he had killed two people.

Jennings had no prior felony convictions, but prosecutors connected him to three other murders. In October 1993, Jennings, Freeman, Anderson, and two others robbed a Fort Worth drug house and killed one person in a robbery that netted them $100 cash and $30 worth of marijuana. On 24 December 1993, Jennings and Freeman killed two people at a residence in Fort Worth. One of the victims was shot with the same .32-caliber handgun that was used to kill Walton and Matthews. Prosecutors believed that Jennings could have been responsible for as many as 20 murders in Fort Worth drug houses.

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