A three-time convicted burglar is now accused of robbing a mother at gunpoint in her home in the Memorial area as she nursed her newborn baby on March 11, only an hour after her husband and five other children left the house.
“I picked up the baby and sat down in my bed to nurse her. And when I looked up, he was in the doorway with a gun pointed at me,” robbery victim Christine Wakefield told only KPRC 2.
The suspect got in through an unlocked back door of the home in the Thornwood neighborhood and instructed Wakefield to keep holding her baby if she didn’t want to get hurt.
She spent 45 minutes at his mercy, giving him everything she could think of as he followed her through the house and eventually cornered her in a closet.
“He was raising his voice and yelling at me, and I just thought to myself ... ‘You’re not supposed to make someone with a gun angry,’” Wakefield said.
She engaged in conversation, through trembles and tears, with the robber throughout the entire ordeal. He wore a tech-friendly glove and used her phone to text her husband. He also told her he was there doing a “job.”
“It just makes me sick,” her husband Trey Wakefield said. “Still to this moment, my children are shaken up by it.”
The Wakefields believe someone possibly eyed their home as they loaded the car for a spring break trip and that they were targeted.
Trey and the other children rushed home from the trip after Christine finally escaped out the front door, 2-week-old Dorothy still in her arms, and got a neighbor to call 911.
The robber got away with her phone and purses, up to $5,000 in cash, and an estimated $60,000 in jewelry, including her wedding ring.
“The wedding ring, finding out that that was gone, was the hardest for me,” she said.
Using surveillance video and a license plate reader, Houston Police tracked down the suspect, 40-year-old Jokobai Linton, to an apartment about four miles from the Wakefield’s home on March 23.
Linton was arrested after an hours-long SWAT standoff, an HPD spokesperson said.
Records revealed Linton is a career criminal on parole until 2025. He was convicted of burglary offenses in Harris and Fort Bend counties in 2001, 2014, and 2019. Less than a year ago, he was accused of burglary in Harris County but got out on a $100,000 bond.
“That should’ve been the end of the story, period. That should’ve been it. A parole warrant should have been issued, which would have kept him locked up,” said Andy Kahan, Crime Stoppers’ director of victim services. “The system failed this mother of six, and frankly she never should have been a victim of a crime.”
The Wakefields are upset, too, after finding out the suspect’s history.
“It seems like the criminal justice system is just a revolving door for these guys,” Trey said. “You know, in an instant, my wife might be dead my baby might be dead because this guy was out on the streets.”
They want justice to prevail and are grateful to still be alive.
“You can’t help but feel fearful that something worse is going to happen,” Trey said.
Linton’s bond was set at $750,000 for aggravated robbery and felon-in-possession charges. A parole warrant, which comes with no bond, is also now in effect, and Kahan said that means Linton is finally off the streets, likely not going anywhere any time soon.