Dallas Observer
April 26, 2014
Jerry Temple is not the guy you want living in the apartment above you. Especially if you rely on a wheelchair, own a flat-screen TV and value your life.
In Temple’s case, the unlucky neighbor was Kenneth Alberts, a 59-year-old disabled man who lived alone in a Grapevine apartment complex.
According to Tarrant County prosecutors, Terry and two acquaintances visited Alberts on August 15, 2012. They were after his TV, which they took, but not before Alberts recognized Temple and made the mistake of calling him “Jerry.”
“Angered that the victim knew his identity, Temple repeatedly stabbed Alberts with a knife before picking up the victim’s walker and brutally beating him with it,” the district attorney’s office wrote in a news release.
Alberts was dead by the time police arrived. Temple would sell the TV before he and his alleged accomplices — Deron Hall and Brion Wooden — were arrested.
Both Hall and Wooden are in jail awaiting trial on capital murder charges. Temple, 33, reached a plea deal with prosecutors on Tuesday. Rather than go to trial and possibly face the death penalty, Temple pleaded guilty to capital murder, agreeing to sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.