Two San Antonio men who thought they were meeting a date through Grindr ended up dead instead, and now the man who met them is facing what will likely amount to a lifetime in prison. On March 6, 2026, a Bexar County judge sentenced Jer Auntey Bernard Pleasant to an effective 50-year prison term, imposing four concurrent 50-year sentences for the killings of 54-year-old Larry Wilson and 22-year-old Joseph West, whom he met separately through the dating app in April 2023. Prosecutors say both men were shot days apart, a one-two punch that has reopened an uneasy conversation in San Antonio about how safe it really is to meet strangers online.
According to KENS5, the Bexar County District Attorney’s office said the four 50-year sentences will run at the same time, not back to back, and confirmed the punishment was handed down after a state district court hearing on March 6. The office told the station it pushed for the lengthy term based on the full body of evidence tying Pleasant to both killings.
Investigators say that evidence started piling up quickly. Ballistic testing and fingerprint work linked both crime scenes to the same 9mm handgun and the same suspect, with shell casings from each location matching and fingerprints at both scenes tying back to Pleasant, according to KSAT. The station also reported that messages on Wilson’s phone showed a conversation with a Grindr account that investigators say was associated with Pleasant.
Police allege the violence unfolded over roughly 24 hours. On April 14, 2023, witnesses reported seeing a man in a red hoodie fire into a white SUV parked outside the Banyan Tree apartments in the 8100 block of Cross Creek. Officers arrived to find Wilson dead in the driver’s seat. The next afternoon, officers performing a welfare check at an apartment at 5055 Von Scheele Drive in the Medical Center area discovered West dead from a single gunshot wound to the head, local reporting shows. The Express-News detailed what officers found at both scenes, along with information from affidavits filed in court.
What Investigators Say Happened
Forensic work became the backbone of the case. Detectives say shell casings at both crime scenes matched each other, and a fingerprint lifted from an open condom wrapper found under West’s bed matched Pleasant’s prints. KSAT reviewed the arrest affidavits and court filings that lay out those details, which prosecutors leaned on heavily when arguing that both killings were connected and that Pleasant was the man behind the gun.
Background And Prior Arrests
Public records show this was not Pleasant’s first encounter with the criminal justice system. Before the 2023 killings, he had prior bookings in Bexar County, including arrests for assault and terroristic threats in April 2019, according to Bexar County court records. Prosecutors brought up that history during the sentencing hearing, pointing to the earlier cases in the same files that were referenced in local coverage of the sentence.
Victim Families And Community Reaction
During the punishment phase, prosecutors also referenced alleged incidents from 2022, including an aggravated robbery in March and an aggravated assault in July, as they argued Pleasant should receive a long prison term, KENS5 reported. The Pride Center of San Antonio called the killings horrifying, and relatives of one victim told reporters they believed he had been set up in the lead-up to the encounter that ended with his death.
Now that the sentence is in place, prosecutors say the punishment reflects the severity of the crimes and is meant to keep the public safe. The court will maintain the case records, while local advocates and officials keep wrestling with the bigger question that lingers long after this verdict: how to prevent future violence tied to app-based meetups without scaring people away from their own social lives.
