Trial continues for Palestine man accused in 2020 murder of Jacksonville teen

JACKSONVILLE, Texas (KLTV) - Trial proceedings continued Tuesday for a Palestine man accused in the 2020 murder of Jacksonville teen Tyress Gipson.

Cameron Shead was one of four people arrested weeks after Gipson’s disappearance. Shead initially was charged with aggravated kidnapping but has since had the charge upgraded to capital murder. If convicted, Shead will not face the death penalty but an automatic life sentence.

Breonna Jiminez was one of the four arrested and charged with aggravated kidnapping and on Tuesday was called by the state to testify. Jiminez said she present when Shead concocted his plan to scare and beat up Gipson and that Shead then acted on that plan with her. Jiminez said she lured Gipson to an abandoned parking lot in the Jacksonville area with a text message talking about weed and sex. Once Gipson arrived, he was ambushed by a gun-toting Shead and Jarious Fuller. Fuller and Shead began beating Gipson, taking his clothes off before putting him in the back seat of a car and taking him to an apartment.

Sometime later that night, Jiminez said, Gipson was taken to another person’s house where he remained stripped to his underwear. Jiminez said Shead teased Gipson with the prospect of smoking marijuana before pouring gasoline on his head. She said Gipson then managed to escape and attempted to run away before Shead shot him in the back of the head. An attempt was made to bury Gipson’s body but the shovel broke. No other details were given about what was done with his body.

Jiminez said that two or three days after the killing, she was directed by Shead to go to the Jacksonville Police Department and deliver information. She said Shead told her to say that she texted Gipson to buy weed from Shead and that after she picked up Gipson, he asked her to drop him off at an apartment in Jacksonville where he then got into another vehicle.

However, after Jiminez was arrested, she continued communicating with Shead but this time was directed in what to say by law enforcement, unbeknownst to Shead.

Jiminez testified that she was unaware anyone intended to kill Gipson when she first picked him up. She then points to Shead in the court room and identifies him as the person who shot Gipson in the back of the head.

The defense then began questioning Jiminez about when she made contact with Gipson, specifying that she met him in person for the first time that night. Jiminez also said that she did not tell Shead to stop beating Gipson. She said that Gipson was transferred between cars multiple times, taken from a house to an apartment and was hogtied with rope.

Jiminez testified that Shead told her to tell investigators that Gipson “had done a lot of bad things to a lot of bad people,” though she also said at the time that she was not yet fully aware the extent of what had happened. She testified that she did multiple interviews with law enforcement and at one point was accused of setting Gipson up and getting him killed. Jiminez claimed that an investigator with the Texas Rangers threatened her with a life sentence in prison. She said she just wants to tell the truth now so that she can get a plea deal and not a life sentence.

When questioned again by the state, Jiminez said she didn’t say anything when Gipson was being attacked because she “was worried.” She said that when Gipson was at the apartment, she tried to tell Shead he “didn’t have to do that.” Jiminez said Shead then threatened her by saying if anyone had a problem with what was happening “the can join Tyress.”

Jiminez was then dismissed, calling up an investigator with the Texas Rangers.

The state began going through a number of exhibits, talking about various methods for obtaining a DNA sample and playing a recording of a conversation between Jiminez and Shead. In the recording, Shead can be heard reassuring Jiminez that all she needs to do is to keep her story consistent and to not be scared.

The defense began questioning Ranger Castle, who at one point said he could not deny that he told Jiminez that in order for her to avoid a life sentence in prison she would have to help herself, which meant helping him in his investigation.

The defense argued that the investigation was not thorough enough they said multiple people were not interviewed when they should have been. “Many stones left unturned.”

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