A 53-year-old military veteran is facing capital murder charges after allegedly shooting and killing two leasing agents at a west Houston residential community following a heated confrontation over a rental agreement, according to statements presented by prosecutors during a court proceeding on Wednesday.
The suspect, Derrick Jackson, appeared before Judge Josh Hill in the 232nd District Court, where Harris County prosecutor Simone Colson recounted the events surrounding the fatal incident. According to court disclosures, an escalating dispute regarding Jackson's leasing terms reportedly pushed the tenant to a breaking point, resulting in extreme violence inside the management office.
Jackson, who had lived at the Park at Woodlake complex for three years, reportedly provided investigators with an account of the altercation that precipitated the shooting. He told Houston Police Department detectives that he grew increasingly agitated during the confrontation when an employee at the leasing facility began conversing in a blend of English and Spanish.
According to the prosecutor’s recitation of Jackson’s statements to police, the tension culminated when 67-year-old leasing agent Rosa Linda Ybarra challenged him verbally during the discussion. Ybarra reportedly questioned the tenant directly, asking whether he had signed the contractual lease agreement himself.
Following that verbal exchange, Jackson allegedly drew a firearm and initiated the fatal attack inside the office space located at 9545 Ella Lee Lane. The gunfire immediately claimed the life of Ybarra, who suffered fatal bullet wounds inside the management area.
The violence then shifted toward the second employee present, 47-year-old Felix Antonio Jimenez-Macz. As Jimenez-Macz attempted to escape the gunfire by running away from the office, Jackson allegedly fired at him, striking the fleeing worker twice.
Jackson subsequently admitted to investigators that when Jimenez-Macz did not immediately succumb to the gunshot injuries, he attacked the wounded leasing agent with a knife, inflicting fatal stab wounds before fleeing the scene.
Security footage retrieved from the complex’s leasing office established that a man entered the premises at approximately 5:30 p.m. last Thursday and exited roughly twelve minutes later. Jackson subsequently admitted to law enforcement personnel that he was the individual captured in the security surveillance recording.
The grim scene went unnoticed until another resident of the apartment community entered the leasing office and discovered the bodies of both Ybarra and Jimenez-Macz, subsequently alerting law enforcement to the double homicide.
The following day, Houston police tracked Jackson to a local hotel, where officers took him into custody without further incident. During the arrest, authorities recovered spent shell casings in his possession that investigators subsequently linked to the gunfire discharged during the killings.
Addressing the court on Wednesday, Colson noted that while the fatal confrontation stemmed from Jackson's housing contract, the specific underlying grievances or contractual stipulations at the center of the dispute have not yet been determined.
Several grieving family members of Ybarra were present in the gallery to observe the formal presentation of capital murder charges against Jackson. The relatives quietly witnessed the court proceedings but chose not to provide public statements following the hearing's conclusion.
Although the Harris County District Attorney’s Office had initially considered pursuing a hearing to keep Jackson detained without bond until his trial, Colson formally requested that bail be established. Judge Hill agreed to the state's recommendation and set Jackson's bond at $1 million.
During the bail determination, Judge Hill emphasized that Jackson possessed no prior criminal record. That finding contrasted with the state’s original charging documents, which had erroneously indicated that Jackson was convicted on a narcotics charge dating back to 1998.
Colson addressed the clerical error in court, clarifying that the decades-old drug conviction belonged to another individual who shared the exact same name as the defendant. The prosecution assured the court that the official complaint would be formally amended to reflect Jackson's accurate record.
Jackson’s defense counsel, Chauntelle Wood White, highlighted her client’s long-standing military service to the court, noting that he had retired from the United States Army and had been living in the Houston area since 2017.
Federal military service records show that Jackson served in both the regular U.S. Army and the U.S. Army Reserves from 1993 until his retirement in 2017. Over his twenty-four-year military career, Jackson achieved the rank of sergeant first class, working as an infantryman and an aviation operations specialist, and completed multiple overseas deployments, including one tour in Iraq in 2008 and two separate tours in Afghanistan across 2009 and 2010.
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