Jerry Don Elders, a man convicted of murdering 61-year-old Robin Waddell while on the run from police back in 2021, has been sentenced to death.
A Johnson County jury found Elders guilty of capital murder last week and had been considering his punishment during the sentencing phase of the trial this week.
With a capital murder conviction, Elders faced either the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole. Jurors on Thursday answered two questions that decided his punishment of death by lethal injection.
The date of execution has not yet been set.
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After the sentence was read, the jury was dismissed and victim impact statements were read.
Elders was arrested in Gainesville on April 14, 2021, after an hours-long manhunt that began with the shooting of Burleson police officer Joshua Lott and the kidnapping and murder of Waddell.
Burleson police said in 2021 that Elders was with a group of people when he shot Lott during a traffic stop before dawn. Police said the trio later abandoned that vehicle and then carjacked Waddell outside a home on the 8000 block of County Road 802.
At 8:44 a.m., Waddell showed up at the Joshua Police Department suffering from gunshot wounds. She was taken to Huguley Hospital South in Burleson, where she later died.
