Fort Worth man who killed couple he thought was trying to ‘take’ his home pleads guilty
A man who shot and killed two people in 2018 because he feared they were trying to “take” his house has pleaded guilty to their murders and was sentenced to 65 years, according to the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office.
Juan Alfredo Alvarez, 33, told Fort Worth police in 2018 that he’d recently met Donald Jenkins, 47, and Cheryl Trimmier, 52, and allowed them to live in his home int the 7000 block of Wildbriar Court.
He was sentenced Tuesday to two 65-year prison sentences to run at the same time. Alvarez will be eligible for parole in 30 years.
Alvarez called 911 on Aug. 2, 2018, and told police that he and a friend came home to find the couple dead, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. Responding officers found Jenkins on his back, shot in the neck and face, and Trimmier hunched over inside the home with a gunshot wound to the head.
In a voluntary interview with detectives at the time, Alvarez denied knowing anything about the murders, according to the affidavit. But Alvarez became uncooperative with detectives when they asked for his clothes and he refused to provide a DNA sample to investigators.
That same day, investigators heard from a witness who said he or she had information about the murders. The witness said Alvarez told him he’d shot a man and a woman in the head “because the victims were trying to ‘take’ his house,” the affidavit said.
“There is no evidence that the victims were trying to harm or take anything from Alvarez,” police said in 2018.
Neighbors in 2018 said that Alvarez was often up all times of the night, playing loud music and sometimes walking around the neighborhood in a military uniform.
