A 90-year-old Navy veteran was shot and run over to death during a carjacking outside a Houston nursing home over the weekend, police said. He told KTRK-TV.
The victim was identified as Nelson Beckett, the station reported.
“I think people in the neighborhood would be safer if the police were there to patrol, and not just when something bad is happening.”
Police told KTRK that around 12:45 p.m. Saturday, Beckett was in the parking lot of Lone Star Living on Westbrae Parkway when a man in his late 20s approached the victim and began speaking to him.
Investigators told the station that surveillance video shows the suspect attacking Beckett, then firing shots and entering the victim's vehicle, and police told KTRK that the suspect ran over Beckett as he fled the scene.
Beckett was pronounced dead at a hospital, and his car was found abandoned on an apartment complex less than three miles away, police said.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case.
“It was a terrible experience,” the victim's son, Tim Beckett, told KTRK. Updates He said he hopes the suspect is caught and is “grateful” for the support he has received following his father's murder.
Tim Beckett added that his father is survived by two children, five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, and told KTRK that his father attended Abilene Christian University, worked in sales after leaving the Navy and was active in Southwest Central Church.
“This is a senseless, cruel act against the most dear of people, this just makes no sense,” Steve Sargent, senior pastor at Southwest Central Church, said at the church's Sunday service, according to the station.
Sargent also said he had attended a funeral at the church just days before Beckett was killed, KTRK reported.
Crime statistics from January to the end of June this year showed at least 61 reported crimes along Westbrae Parkway, close to where Beckett was killed, the police department said, adding that there had been 81 reported crimes in the same area in all of 2023.
At least one neighbor who has lived in the area for 20 years added to the station that safety concerns are growing: “I think the neighbors would feel a lot safer if the police were out patrolling, not just when something bad is happening.”
Police urged anyone with information about Beckett's murder to call 713-308-3600, according to KTRK.
You can watch the video report here About the deadly carjacking.
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