Kilgore man sentenced for 2015 murder

GREGG COUNTY – Our news partners at KETK report that nearly a decade after the shooting that led to John Allen Franco’s death, a Kilgore man has been sentenced. According to arrest documents, the shooting stemmed from a threat to show nude photos. In 2017, a person allegedly told Gregg County investigator that Jessie Brown hunted down Franco because of a threat Franco made to show nude photos of Brown’s relative. That interview gave police enough information to charge Brown with the 2015 murder.

Brown’s arrest documents include details of what happened the night of the shooting and how authorities came to the conclusion that Brown was responsible.

At around 10 p.m. on May 20, 2015, deputies were called to a road in Liberty City where Franco’s car was found in a ravine occupied with his toddler daughter and a woman. First responders first thought it was a one-vehicle wreck until a gunshot wound to Franco’s head was discovered.

Franco was declared dead at the scene and the woman told authorities that when Franco stopped at the intersection of Old Highway 135 and Smallwood Road a man got out of a truck that had previously been following them and ran up to Francos window with a gun.

The woman told police “she was uncertain about what occurred but that she believed Franco reversed his vehicle really fast and that something caused the driver’s side window to break,” according to the warrant.

Although investigators did many interviews after the shooting, the warrant said the Gregg County Sheriff’s Office did not receive any more leads until years later. In August of 2017, a person who wanted to remain anonymous contacted authorities with names of people responsible for Franco’s death which included Brown and two other men.
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That October, an investigator reached one of the men named who said that Brown had asked him to go riding with him and the other man the night of the shooting. The man said that Brown “wanted to assault Franco because Franco had threatened to show nude photos of [Brown’s relative],” who Franco used to date, the warrant said.

On Oct. 17, 2017 an arrest warrant for murder was issued for Brown and he was booked into the Gregg County Jail.

On Nov. 1, seven years later, Brown entered a nonguilty plea but was convicted for the murder and sentenced to 40 years in prison.