A jury handed down what is effectively a life sentence for a man who was convicted earlier this week of the hit-and-run murder of a former Fort Hood soldier.
Jordan Mikal Smart, 28, was being held in the Bell County Jail on Friday. After listening to three days of testimony during a trial this week, a jury of 12 Bell County residents found Smart guilty of murder on Wednesday.
“The jury returned a verdict of 99 years in prison and a $10,000 fine after today’s closing arguments and deliberation,” First Assistant District Attorney Stephanie Newell said on Friday.
First-degree felonies are punishable by five to 99 years, or life, in prison, according to the Texas Penal Code.
The victim, Bryan Seth Story, 32, an Arkansas native, was one of two men struck during the hit-and-run in Killeen on May 24, 2020. After undergoing numerous medical procedures to alleviate a severe traumatic brain injury, he died in Arkansas on Dec. 12, 2020.
During his testimony on Wednesday in the 426th Judicial District Court, Smart told the jury that it was his girlfriend who struck Story and another man with a white Dodge Nitro on the night of May 24, 2020, in Killeen.
The state’s prosecutor presented evidence such as witness testimony, interviews with police as well as jail-recorded phone calls and letters to attempt to show the jury that Smart at first told various stories about the incident such as that the vehicle had been stolen and returned damaged.
Later, in a letter that was shown in the courtroom, Smart wrote a woman that he was the driver but that the incident was in self-defense.
Story joined the Army in June of 2008 and served until December 2012, reaching the rank of sergeant first class, according to the Fort Hood Press Center. He was a Fire Support Specialist.
Story, who was born in Germany, left behind three children. During his time as a soldier, he earned the Army Achievement Medal, Army Good Conduct Medal, Global War on Terrorism Medal, National Defense Service Medal, and the Army Service Ribbon, according to his obituary at the Roller-McNutt Funeral Home in Clinton, Arkansas.
