A jury in Orange, Texas has sentenced a Houston man to life in prison for firing the shot that killed a 62-year-old visitor sitting inside a home he had nothing to do with. Robert Deandre Bill was convicted of murder Thursday for his role in a Memorial Day 2025 drive-by shooting that left Charles “Pookie” Declouet dead, more than a year after the case first jolted the small East Texas city.
The shooting happened just before 9:48 p.m. on May 26, 2025, when Orange police officers responded to a 911 call reporting gunfire at a home in the 2000 block of 6th Street, according to 12NewsNow. Officers arrived to find Declouet, a Bridge City resident who was simply visiting the residence, on a couch inside the living room after being struck in the head by gunfire. He was airlifted to CHRISTUS St. Elizabeth Hospital in Beaumont, roughly 25 miles west of Orange, where he later died and an autopsy was ordered, per The Orange Leader.
Declouet was not the intended target of the attack, according to KOGT, which describes him as an innocent visitor caught in someone else's dispute. As reported by The Examiner, Bill was 22 years old at the time and was riding in the back seat of the car when shots were fired into the home.
Security Video Cracked the Case in Days
Orange Police Department detectives pieced the case together quickly by gathering neighborhood security footage that captured four shots fired from a single car, along with separate video showing the occupants inside that vehicle. That evidence let investigators identify James Williams Jr. as the driver and Bill as the backseat shooter, the station's report notes. Investigators determined Williams was driving because of a personal grudge he held against the homeowner.
Arrest warrants followed just three days after the shooting. Bill was arrested May 29, 2025, in Stafford, Texas, in a joint operation between the Houston Police Department and the Harris County Pct. 3 Constable's Office, while Williams was arrested in Orange that same day, according to The Examiner's earlier reporting on the arrests.
Two Different Sentences for Two Roles
The two men's cases moved through the courts on different timelines. Williams, who admitted to driving the vehicle, was sentenced to 45 years in prison on May 28, 2026, nearly three months before Bill's trial began. Bill's case went to a jury, which convicted him and delivered a life sentence on the same day, Thursday, following a trial in the 128th District Court presided over by Judge Courtney Arkeen, per the same account from KOGT.
Under Texas Penal Code § 19.02, murder is a first-degree felony carrying a statutory range of 5 to 99 years or life in prison, according to Saputo Toufexis. That framework gave the jury room to hand down the maximum sentence for Bill while Williams, who did not fire the fatal shot but drove the car, received a term sentence instead.
Assistant District Attorney Katey McCall and District Attorney Krispen Walker Winfree led the prosecution on behalf of the Orange County District Attorney's Office, with help from DA Victim's Assistance Coordinator Rebecca Patterson Smith, 12NewsNow reported. The Orange County District Attorney's Office also noted that prosecutors secured two separate murder convictions and life sentences during the same trial week in August 2026, crediting local police detectives for gathering what they described as overwhelming evidence across both cases.
