Tuesday, April 16, 2024
One of the two men who were arrested in late September and charged with murder is scheduled for a hearing on the 355th District Court docket for Friday, July 8.
Jessie Frank Diaz, a 34-year-old Hood County resident with an address in Oak Trail Shores, is facing the first-degree murder count as well as a third-degree felony charge in connection with “terroristic threat against a peace officer of judge,” according to jail records at the time.
The other Hood County man who was arrested on a murder charge in connection with the incident that happened just over a year ago is Harry Lee Ives IV, who at one time had a Tolar residence.
Hood County District Attorney Ryan Sinclair told the HCN in an email received after hours on Friday, July 1 that the scheduled court time for Diaz this Friday will be for a status hearing, and that the cases "will be tried at a later date."
The HCN reported in early October 2021 that DPS Sgt. Richard Hunter emailed a Sept. 28 news release stating that Diaz and Ives had been arrested by “Texas Department of Public Safety Criminal Investigation Division Agents along with Hood County Sheriff’s Department investigators.” They were charged with “the 1st Degree felony offense of murder as well as outstanding warrants. Both persons have been booked into the Hood County Jail.”
Hunter described a fatal collision, which troopers investigated at about 4 a.m. on June 28, 2021 in this way:
“A 2004 Nissan Xterra was traveling north on FM 2580 and a 1993 GMC pickup was behind the Nissan. The Nissan was driving in a reckless manner and braked hard causing the GMC to strike the rear of the Nissan. That collision caused the Nissan to travel into the northbound lane where it struck a 2014 Volkswagen Tiguan head on. The collision between the Nissan and the Volkswagen resulted in the death of a passenger inside the Volkswagen.”
Hunter noted that the Nissan was driven by Ives, who at that time was listed as having a home address in Bryan.
Weatherford resident Jennifer A. Kamp, who was 43 at the time, was a passenger in the Volkswagen and was pronounced dead as a result of the crash, which also involved a GMC pickup driven by a Granbury man, Hunter stated.
Sinclair confirmed in an email to the HCN last October that Diaz and Ives were both “charged with felony murder for an offense occurring on or about June 28, 2021. The murder charge stems from a homicide that occurred while both suspects were in the process of committing another felony.”
Also in his July 1 email to the HCN, Sinclair stated that "the underlying crime in both cases was theft."
A news release from the Hood County Sheriff’s Office received by the HCN in connection with the case stated that on April 16, 2021, “several bomb threats came in over the phone at the Hood County District judge’s office at the Hood County Justice Center.”
The HCN story explained that “a lengthy investigation” by the Sheriff’s Office “led to the arrest of Jessie Frank Diaz Sept. 26 on charges of threatening a judge,” according to Lt. Johnny Rose. The article continued that the Sheriff’s Office news release states that “Investigators think the motive behind the threats may have been to shut down proceedings in District Court, delaying the sentencing of a person on the dockets that day and keeping that person out of prison.”
