HOUSTON – A Houston man, who was charged with two murders, was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said.
Gerald Dewayne Washington, 30, was recently sentenced for the 2017 fatal shooting of Crystal Turner, 33.
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He had also been charged with fatally shooting another man in 2020.
“This defendant was involved in two separate fatal shootings, including one where he grievously injured two women out on a ‘girls’ night’ with their friend,” Ogg said. “In the second shooting, he opened fire at a gas station in broad daylight and could have killed even more people. The consequences for that kind of rampant gun violence has to be a life sentence.”
On Oct. 22, 2017, Washington got into a car with Turner and her two friends to go to an after-hours club, and he sat in the back seat.
He then started shooting and killed Turner and injured the other two women.
The two survivors spoke at court during the murder trial.
One of them said she has seizures because she was shot in her head, and the other woman said she cannot carry her children because her arm was injured.
Washington was arrested for this shooting then released on bond while he waited for the trial to begin.
The other fatal shooting Washington was charged with happened on Feb. 9, 2020.
He went to a convenience store on Scott Street on Houston’s south side around 4 p.m.
Surveillance video showed he bought some items at the store, then he went back into his car in the parking lot, and seemed like he was waiting for another person. Reginald “Duke” Larry, 29, later arrived at the store, and Washington exited his car and opened the door for him, but he did not follow him into the store.
The men did not seem to know each other.
Washington eventually got into his red Dodge Durango and went around the block then came back to the store. He fired his gun, and Larry was shot in the head in the parking lot.
The DA’s office said they do not know why the man fatally shot Larry.
Assistant District Attorney Keegan Childers and ADA Sarah Dimas prosecuted the case.
“This defendant was already facing a life sentence for murder when he picked up a second murder,” Childers said. “If the possibility of getting a life sentence didn’t deter him at all, nothing will—he would have continued to commit violent crimes.”