Jury convicts Paul Edward Westbrooks Jr. of murder in April 10 aggravated robbery that left two men dead

A jury in Jefferson County’s 252nd District Court found Paul Edward Westbrooks Jr. guilty of murder for his role in an April 10, 2023, aggravated robbery that left two men dead, the court record shows.

The verdict followed testimony from Beaumont police detectives, a forensic firearms examiner and a forensic pathologist who described surveillance footage, witness statements and autopsy findings that prosecutors said tied Westbrooks to the robbery and subsequent shootings.

Detective Saeve Serrong, with the Beaumont Police Department, testified that investigators recovered surveillance video showing a vehicle in the neighborhood near the 1830 Elgin address and that a tip led to footage from a second location. Serrong described interviews with witnesses and a woman identified in court as Shirley Jackson, who told investigators where two handguns and magazines had been discarded; police later recovered two pistols from dumpster pickups at locations the detective identified. Serrong said investigative steps — surveillance, witness interviews and recovered items — corroborated parts of Jackson’s account and, in his view, connected three named men to the scene.

Hunter Jones, a firearms examiner at the Jefferson County crime lab, testified that one 9mm cartridge case collected in the investigation was, in his opinion, fired from the teal Springfield XDS entered into evidence as State’s Exhibit 19. Jones also testified that a projectile submitted for comparison was too damaged to yield a conclusive match. Dr. Christopher Geffre, a forensic pathologist, testified that the autopsies showed both victims died of gunshot wounds and classified both deaths as homicides; he said the entry wound on one victim was consistent with a contact or near-contact shot to the abdomen.

In closing, defense counsel, identified in the record as “Mister Vasquez,” argued that key testimony depended on Shirley Jackson and that, without her, "there is absolutely nothing implicating Paul Westbrooks in these allegations. It all rides with her." Prosecutors responded that the witness statements, surveillance and recovered evidence corroborated the account presented at trial and that the three men acted together; the prosecutor told jurors there was "no reasonable doubt that he is guilty as a party, if not the sole actor in this case."

After deliberations the jury’s foreperson presented a unanimous verdict form read in open court: "We, the jury, find the defendant, Paul Edward Westbrooks junior, aka Paul Edward Westbrooks and Paul Westbrooks junior, guilty of murder as charged in the indictment." The judge then moved the proceedings to the punishment phase; court minutes show the punishment portion is scheduled to begin the following morning and that the court revoked any bond and ordered Westbrooks’s fingerprints to be taken.

The indictment in the case alleges that the killings occurred in the course of an aggravated robbery. The court’s written charge to the jury described two alternative theories under which jurors could convict: that the defendant personally committed a murderous act during an aggravated robbery, or that he was criminally responsible as a party for actions of others who committed murder while committing aggravated robbery.

The judge excused the alternate juror after the verdict and instructed counsel to return early the next day for the sentencing-phase proceedings. No sentence was imposed at the conclusion of the trial’s guilt–innocence phase.