HOUSTON (KIAH) — A Houston man convicted of murdering an 11-year-old boy was just sentenced to life in prison.
Prosecutors say Desmond Hawkins shot and killed the boy and his stepfather back in 2020.
At the time Hawkins was free on Bond for a capital murder that happened three years earlier.
“A little boy with his whole life ahead of him was murdered because of a cold-blooded ambush in broad daylight,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said. “This was a capital murder, and the appropriate sentence is life in prison without parole.”
Desmond Hawkins, 23, was convicted of capital murder for fatally shooting 11-year-old Dominic Sumicek on October 26, 2020. Hawkins shot and killed the boy and his stepfather, 41-year-old Menuell Solomon, while the two sat in Solomon’s car outside their home. Intentionally killing a child under the age of 14 is a capital crime.
At the time of 11-year-old Dominic’s murder, Hawkins was free on bond for a capital murder that occurred on October 10, 2016. In that case, Hawkins was arrested for shooting and killing John Pye, a man Hawkins knew, while Hawkins was robbing Pye.
Hawkins was then released on bond with an ankle monitor equipped with a GPS tracker. Hawkins was wearing the monitor when he killed the 11-year-old boy and his stepfather four years later.
About a week before the shooting, the boy’s stepfather reported to police that a man he did not know tried to kill him by shooting at him while he was parking his Mercedes-Benz sedan in the driveway of his west Houston townhouse. Solomon told police he did not know why he had been targeted.
