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Steven Black raised a piece of asphalt and, over and over, thrust it into Susan Watkins’ face. Her legs twitched on the ground. As he held on to a dumpster for balance, Black stomped on her head.
Javaughn Greer told two detectives that he knocked down Donald Snellings, stomped 15 times on his head and ribs and hit Snellings five times with the 71-year-old man’s wooden cane.
Snellings, who Greer said owed him more than $1,000, was using a walker along a street before Greer, who was 18 at the time, and another teenager beat him, leaving Snellings in a driveway with blood coming from his ear and other parts of his head.
Within a span of four months in Fort Worth last year, Watkins and Snellings were killed in similarly brutal attacks in the Near Southside and Historic Southside sections of the city.
The cases hold other similarities. Watkins had a history of alcohol abuse and was homeless. Snellings had a history of using drugs. At his death, Snellings’ belongings were limited to a bicycle and a couple of totes.
“How’d you stomp his head in?” Detective Domingo Martinez, standing outside a police patrol car, asked Greer, who was sitting inside.
“With my foot,” Greer said.
Five days after Watkins’ skull was crushed in a parking lot, the 50-year-old woman died at a hospital. Snellings died at a hospital after 21 days in which he was never conscious.
On Thursday, in state district courtrooms in Tarrant County that are separated by a floor, juries in the blunt-force trauma homicide trials found both defendants guilty of murder.
Black murdered Watkins “by bashing her brains in with his foot and with this hunk of asphalt,” prosecutor Grayson Ezzell said in the state’s closing argument, lifting the exhibit.
Black acted without remorse, without pause, Ezzell said.
Susan Watkins “was tragically murdered in Fort Worth, a devastating and unimaginable loss to my family,” her daughter wrote on a GoFundMe page. Family photo via GoFundMe
During his portion of the argument, prosecutor Tim Rodgers sat a clear bag holding the asphalt piece on the jury box rail and used his foot to replicate the stomping.
In line with the state’s request, a jury in the 396th District Court on Thursday afternoon assessed Black’s punishment at life in prison. Black, 48, will become eligible for parole after he serves 30 years. Earlier in the day, a jury in the 297th District Court assessed Greer’s punishment at 40 years, the sentence sought by prosecutors D.J. Estes and Michael Mooneyham. Greer, 20, will become eligible for parole after he serves 20 years.
Defense attorneys in both cases argued that the defendants’ intent was in question, raising in argument the possibility that their clients were not trying to cause serious bodily injury or death.
Greer, who decided to testify in the guilt-innocence phase of his trial, said he hit Snellings twice with the cane after Snellings pulled a knife, swung the cane and used a racial slur. No knife was visible in or near the driveway in the 900 block of East Broadway Avenue where Snellings was beaten, and Greer did not mention the weapon in his interview with Detectives Martinez and Michael Sones.
“Were you trying to kill Donald Snellings?” Greer’s defense attorney, Brett Boone, first asked his client when he took the witness stand.
“No, sir,” Greer testified.
Boone represented Greer with attorney Brian Eppes.
In an agreement with the state, Josiah Hoffman, the other person indicted in Snellings’ death, in late July pleaded guilty to murder in exchange for a 35-year prison sentence and commitment to testify truthfully against Greer at trial. The state did not call Hoffman to the witness stand.
Attorneys Tim Brown and Kevin Novak represented Black, who decided not to testify.
Judges Amy Allin and Vincent Giardino presided at the trials.
This story was originally published August 27, 2026 at 7:57 PM.
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Emerson Clarridge covers crime and other breaking news for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He works days and reports on law enforcement affairs in Tarrant County. He previously was a reporter at the Omaha World-Herald and the Observer-Dispatch in Utica, New York.