After an eight-year-long legal battle, Jarvis Earl Hickerson, the Houston man convicted of the 2016 capital murder of his girlfriend Amalia Alexander, has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg's office revealed Wednesday. The case has drawn attention to the severity of domestic violence consequences, with Ogg stating, "This case is horrible and shows exactly why we take every allegation of domestic violence so seriously — too often it escalates to homicide," as noted in an official statement.
During the course of the trial, which spanned eight days, Jarvis Hickerson, who was 40 at the time of conviction, was found guilty of killing 32-year-old Amalia Alexander, primarily based on evidence that included surveillance footage of Hickerson leaving Alexander's apartment the morning she disappeared and cellphone records pinpointing Hickerson in the vicinity of where her remains were found the following days, over the course of two consecutive days he was there and she had been expected at work at a particular time, she never showed.
Before her death, Alexander took legal measures against Hickerson, including filing an assault charge and obtaining a protective order after an assault at an IHOP, authorities told the press. Despite desperate attempts by Hickerson to sway Alexander, including a marriage proposal to prevent her from testifying, she remained resolute, a decision which, according to trial evidence, led to her murder and the consequential life sentence handed to Hickerson.
Along with his attempt to escape justice by tampering with his GPS ankle monitor while on bond, and thereafter assaulting another girlfriend, Hickerson's persistent efforts to manipulate and retaliate against Alexander played a significant part in the jury's decision, with Assistant District Attorney Steve Walsh, emphasizing key testimonies and technological evidence that cemented Hickerson's presence at crucial locations connected to the crime, while Mary McFaden, the division chief of the Domestic Violence Division, underscored the calculated nature of Hickerson's transgressions, stating, “His begging and manipulation didn’t work — because Amalia was strong,” McFaden said “At that point, he knew she was not going to back down, so he killed her in retaliation,” according to the Harris County District Attorney's Office.
