KAUFMAN COUNTY, Texas — An 80-year-old Kaufman County woman has been arrested and charged with murder in the shooting death of her adult daughter last year.
KAUFMAN COUNTY, Texas — An 80-year-old Kaufman County woman has been arrested and charged with murder in the shooting death of her adult daughter last year.
According to police, at the time of the shooting on September 14, 2021, 80-year-old Margaret Johnston was alleged to have shot her daughter, 52-year-old Connie Lynn Helms during a domestic disturbance in the 12000 block of Farm-to-Market (FM) 1836.
A jury trial was held on August 1-2, 2022, in the 86th District Court before Judge Casey Blair. During trial, jurists heard testimony Johnston had shot Helms because she feared she and her siblings were attempting to have her admitted to a nursing home.
According to the autopsy report, Johnston shot Helms in the right shoulder with a .38-caliber revolver which then struck her right lung, two arteries, and lodged in the right ventricle of her heart. She died at the scene.
Johnston was arrested, charged with murder, and held on a $1 million bond.
According to witness testimony, Helms was on the phone with a sibling at the time of the shooting and Johnston could be heard approaching Helms and saying, "How does it feel to be dead you little b****?"
Despite this, she told investigators she thought Helms was faking it and performed CPR after realizing her eyes weren't moving. She later sought help from a neighbor.
Late August 2nd, the jury returned a guilty verdict on the murder charge, a first-degree felony.
The next day, on August 3, 2022, Blair conducted the punishment phase of the trial. Johnston opted to be sentenced by Blair and was subsequently sentenced to life in prison with the right to appeal.
Johnston turns 81 years old on August 5, 2022. She remains jailed at the Kaufman County Jail pending Pen Pac and her eventual transfer to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.