Kendell Morris: Texas man gets 27 years in jail for shooting wrong man mistaking him for baby mom's BF

Warning: This article contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some, readers’ discretion advised.

TEXAS, UNITED STATES: A 26-year-old man from Texas will serve more than 20 years in prison for a senseless crime. The man drove hundreds of miles to kill the man his child's mother was seeing, but unintentionally shot and killed the wrong person.

For the 2020 killing of Robert Cooley III, a Tarrant County jury on Wednesday, December 20, sentenced Kendell Jerrell Morris to 27 years in a state penitentiary, according to officials.

Kendell Jerrell Morris convicted of murder

Morris was previously convicted by a jury to one count of murder for shooting Cooley to death.

In a press release issued by Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney Phil Sorrells, Morris stated that on May 4, 2020, he traveled over 250 miles from his Houston, Texas, home to an Arlington address he thought was occupied by the new boyfriend of his child's mother.

Morris intentionally planned to kill the new boyfriend, according to the prosecution. According to Sorrells' statement in the release, "He thought he saw the boyfriend and opened fire, killing Robert Cooley III, 24, who was not the boyfriend."

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram was able to obtain court records that shed more light on the shooting's circumstances, Law&Crime reported.

Before driving to the Arlington apartment complex with the intention of killing the boyfriend, Morris reportedly had no personal acquaintance with him and was only familiar with his physical characteristics, including the fact that he was a Black man and had dreadlocks.

But prior to Cooley's untimely demise, Morris and the boyfriend had engaged in multiple "adversarial conversations" over the phone, according to the police.

What do investigators state?

According to an Arlington Police Department detective's probable cause affidavit, Morris and another man were seen on surveillance footage from an Edgebrook, Texas, gun store on May 3, when Morris bought two .223 magazines for an AR-15 rifle.

A 2008 white Nissan Altima was parked in the lot of the apartment complex where the shooting incident occurred early on May 4, according to a witness who told police she lived with the boyfriend, as reported by the Star-Telegram.

The witness stated that they heard multiple gunshots and then saw Cooley walking across the parking lot. Cooley was supposedly lying on the ground when she looked again, and the white Nissan Altima had driven off.

Morris was allegedly seen driving the white Altima that was brought to the shooting scene by multiple witnesses, according to police reports. Morris was taken into custody by a Texas State Police trooper shortly after the fatal shooting.

Morris' car contained an AR-15 rifle, according to the authorities.

The man who drove Morris to Arlington from Houston and helped him buy the ammunition was first accused of murder, but the district attorney's office later withdrew the charge, according to KDFW.