An Austin man's attempt at a peaceful night ended in tragedy when his life was abruptly taken during a robbery gone fatally wrong, leading to a capital murder charge for the suspect. KVUE reports that on the night of July 13, just half an hour before the stroke of midnight, a desperate call to the Austin Police Department revealed a scene of chaos in the 7300 block of Duval Street, where a woman reportedly scrambled from a vehicle, and a man brandished a weapon.
Officers gathered insights from the woman involved, who revealed that she and her boyfriend, Steven Conn, aged 41, had given a ride to an acquaintance. The seemingly routine act spiraled into violence when 22-year-old Jose Duron, seated in the back of Conn's Ford Bronco, allegedly shot Conn and forced the woman to flee, CBS Austin reported. Following the shooting, Duron took control of the vehicle, leaving with the wounded Conn still inside.
The subsequent search for Conn culminated in a grim discovery: his body was located in an East Austin field just north of 6400 Loyola Lane. After a two-day-long investigation, on July 15, authorities confirmed that Conn was deceased, marking this incident as the capital city's 33rd homicide of the year. In the wake of this discovery, the initial charges against Duron for aggravated robbery and aggravated kidnapping were respectively escalated to the more severe judgment of capital murder.
Duron evaded law enforcement briefly but was apprehended on July 16 in North Austin. He now faces capital murder charges in conjunction with the death of Conn. According to police, digital forensics played a key role in tracking Duron's movements following the crime. This critical evidence, along with the testimonies, helped unravel the sequence of events that led to this tragic end. Law enforcement remains open to public input and is urging anyone with possible information to aid their ongoing inquiries, seeking anonymous tips through the Capital Area Crime Stoppers Program.
