Man Sentenced to Life In Prison for Murder of Ex-Girlfriend in Baytown

A Harris County jury on Thursday sentenced a 40-year-old man to life in prison and a $10,000 fine for the 2020 murder of his estranged girlfriend in Baytown, District Attorney Kim Ogg announced.

“This is a heartbreaking example of how dangerous domestic violence can be, especially when a woman is trying to get out of a bad situation,” Ogg said. “This man thought he should be allowed to control a woman he had a brief relationship with, and when the relationship ended, he executed her in cold blood.”

Robert Joseph Roberts, 40, fatally shot 31-year-old Jazmin Simone Garrett in her car at an apartment complex in the 900 block of Northwood Drive in Baytown on October 28, 2020.

The two had only dated for about three months while they were living in Houston earlier that year, but broke up amid allegations of abuse.

In October 2020, Garrett was living in an apartment in Baytown, and Roberts was apparently living in New Orleans.

In the hours before the murder, Roberts drove all night from New Orleans and arrived at Garrett’s apartment complex in Baytown around midnight.

When he did not see her car, he left and met up with a friend in Spring. He convinced that friend to take him back to Garrett’s apartment complex at 4 a.m. Roberts did not tell his friend his plan.

Once they were parked at the complex, Roberts donned a mask and went to watch the apartment where Garrett lived. Roberts can be seen on surveillance video lurking around her car.

Around 5 a.m., Garrett came out of the apartment to go to work. Roberts confronted her as she sat in the driver’s seat of her sedan. After exchanging words for a few minutes, Roberts shot her three times, killing her.

He then walked back to his friend’s car, which was parked in a different part of the complex parking lot, and they drove back to Spring. Roberts then returned to Louisiana.

Investigators with the Baytown Police Department were able to identify Roberts as a suspect from the surveillance video. They tracked his cell phone, which showed his location before, during and after the murder. They were also able to locate his friend who told police about what happened that night.

Assistant District Attorney Matthew Magill, who is assigned to the DA’s Domestic Violence Division, and ADA Elizabeth Liberman prosecuted Roberts in a five-day trial.

“This was an ambush, a planned-out execution, of someone he could no longer control,” Magill said. “Once he lost that control of her, he ended her life in a calculated and premeditated hit.”