Upshur County man receives life sentence for assault

UPSHUR COUNTY – A man charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, while on parole, was sentenced to life in prison after 13 minutes of jury deliberation, our news partner KETK reports. The jury first began hearing evidence on Wednesday about not only this case but the defendant, Robert Buchanan’s prior convictions as well. According to a press release, Buchanan had been convicted of attempted murder in 1993 for shooting two people with a gun. Later that same year, officials said he threatened to kill three other people.. Other offenses involving violence against women were also proven to have been committed by Buchanan, according to the DA’s office. While on parole in 2011, Buchanan was found on a Longview ISD campus with a firearm and sentenced to seven years in prison. In 2018 and 2019, officials said evidence showed that Buchanan had burned a woman’s car in Louisiana and also strangled and assaulted another woman. For those convictions, he was sentenced to prison and then released on parole. Buchanan was still on parole when he committed the violent assault against his girlfriend in Upshur County. In total, nine prior convictions were proven, with seven of them being felony sentences.