Testimony from witnesses highlight first day of trial

Man accused of killing former girlfriend’s twin

NEW BOSTON, Texas — A Bowie County jury seated to decide if a man is guilty of murder in the March 2020 shooting of his former girlfriend’s twin brother heard a full day of testimony Wednesday.

First Assistant District Attorney Kelley Crisp told the jury that Kavante Lamarr Wright, 27, was drunk and angry when he shot and killed 35-year-old Eric Gentry in the kitchen of a Texarkana, Texas, apartment Wright shared with Eric Gentry’s sister and children on March 19, 2020. Texarkana defense lawyer Shorty Barrett told the jury that Wright felt threatened and acted to protect himself as Texas law referred to as the “castle doctrine” allows.

The jury listened to a 911 call made by Eric Gentry’s nephew moments after the shooting. The boy was 13 when he made the call.

“My uncle got shot and it was my mom’s boyfriend that shot him because he was drunk,” the boy said on the 911 call. “I was right there when he shot him.”

On the call the boy tells the 911 dispatcher that he is too afraid to go downstairs to check on his uncle.

“I don’t want to go down there because he pointed the gun at me. He’s drunk,” the boy said on the 911 call.

The boy testified under questioning from Assistant District Attorney Lauren Richards that he was upstairs in his room playing video games when he heard noise and yelling downstairs. He

testified that “about once a month” he would hear arguing between his mother and Wright and would stay in his room but this time, he came down because he heard his uncle’s voice.

“My uncle was just saying, ‘There’s kids in the house. You need to put the gun up,’ and stuff,” the boy testified.

The boy broke down in tears when Richards asked if he witnessed Wright shoot Gentry.

“My uncle, he was like, ‘You shot me,’” the boy testified.

The boy said he yelled and Wright “waved” the gun at him and told him to go upstairs.

Several other younger children including the boy’s brother and two cousins were upstairs as well.

Echo Gentry — Wright’s former girlfriend and Eric Gentry’s twin sister — testified that Wright was intoxicated when she picked him up from a house in Texarkana, Arkansas, the afternoon of March 19, 2020. Echo Gentry testified that Wright became angry because she refused to stop so he could buy more alcohol.

Echo Gentry testified that she drove Wright and two of his nephews, both under 10, to her apartment on Stuckey Street. Echo Gentry said Wright had asked Eric Gentry, who was enrolled in barber school, to come over and cut his and the children’s hair.

Echo Gentry testified that Wright was being physically aggressive with her before her brother showed up with their cousin, Mario Cornelius. She said Wright had pushed her against a wall and into a chair shortly before the doorbell rang.

Echo Gentry said Wright becomes abusive when under the influence of alcohol.

“It’s like there’s another side of him,” Echo Gentry said.

After her brother arrived and began cutting one of the children’s hair, Wright again became aggressive with her, Echo Gentry testified. She said her brother urged Wright to “chill out” and told him he wouldn’t want someone to treat his sister the way Wright was treating his.

A short time later, Wright emerged from his bedroom with a 9 mm pistol in his pocket, Echo Gentry testified. Cornelius testified that Eric Gentry asked Wright to put the gun away because of the children present.

“Kavante said he pays the bills here and can’t nobody come tell him how to do this or that in his own house,” Cornelius testified.

Cornelius said Eric Gentry looked at him and asked if he had a gun in his truck.

“I looked at that as an opportunity to get out of there,” Cornelius said. “He was in a drunken rage and he had a gun in his pocket.”

Cornelius said he and Eric Gentry walked outside for a minute but Eric Gentry would not leave as Cornelius asked him repeatedly to do. Cornelius said Eric Gentry was worried about his sister and the children inside the apartment.

Cornelius testified that when he and Eric Gentry walked back in the apartment, Wright asked Eric Gentry where the gun was and Eric Gentry replied that he did not have one.

Cornelius said Wright walked outside and fired a single shot in the air before turning and firing a second shot into the apartment striking the floor in the entry. Cornelius said Eric Gentry was standing in the kitchen when Wright turned and shot him.

Cornelius said he and Echo Gentry ran out the front door after Wright shot Eric Gentry. Cornelius and Echo Gentry testified they ran outside and did not go to Eric Gentry because they feared Wright might shoot them.

“He looked like a demon, a drunken demon,” Cornelius testified.

Barrett grilled Echo Gentry and Cornelius about whether there was a second gun in the apartment. Both Echo Gentry and Cornelius testified Wright was the only person with a firearm.

Texarkana, Texas, police arrived in response to the call from Echo Gentry’s 13-year-old son. When they attempted to enter the apartment, they found the door locked. The deadbolt on the front door was engaged so a key provided by Echo Gentry didn’t give them access, Officer Jonathan Price testified.

Price said he was dispatched to unit 301 at the Rosehill Ridge Apartments at 4:19 p.m. Price said gaining entry to the apartment was paramount because he was told there was a gunshot victim, children and a man with a gun inside.

Price said he tried unsuccessfully to kick the front door in before he and several other officers moved to the back door of the apartment. Sgt. Brad Thacker testified that officers used a glass breaking device to shatter a large window on the back door but before they could reach in and unlock it, Wright opened the door.

Price said he and other officers, along with emergency personnel, attempted to revive Eric Gentry for close to half an hour before he was pronounced dead. While officers cleared the apartment and attempted to save Eric Gentry, Officer Rod Taylor stayed with Wright outside in back of the apartment.

Taylor said Wright smelled of alcohol and had slurred speech.

Thacker testified that the oldest child in the apartment, the one who called 911, was coming down the stairs when they gained entry and he was escorted outside. Price stayed upstairs with the younger children until officers found a blanket they could hold up to block the sight of Eric Gentry lying dead on the floor from their view as they were taken outside.

The jury also heard from a former girlfriend of Wright’s. Stacy Lewis testified that when she was in a dating relationship with Wright from 2015 to 2016 he would become physically abusive toward her when he was drinking. Lewis said she would hide Wright’s keys to keep him from driving while drunk and that Wright was convicted of assaulting her in Florida.

Testimony from witnesses for the state is scheduled to resume Thursday morning before 202nd District Judge John Tidwell. If convicted of murder, Wright faces five to 99 years or life in prison.