Xavier Bass pleaded guilty to murder in the shooting of his father, Gene Bass, in Fort Worth. The son is on trial in state district court in Tarrant County for a jury to determine his punishment.
Amanda McCoy
FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
In his 939-mile, five-state road odyssey from Valdosta, Georgia, to Fort Worth, Xavier Bass had time to mull his mission, about 14 hours of driving to brood on the bitterness that his father had stirred within the 27-year-old, or, perhaps, change his mind about killing him.
Bass in June 2024 saw the patricide plan to it to its end, reducing his father, Gene Bass, to a crumple outside a neighbor’s house in the orderly subdivision where Xavier grew up near North Crowley High School. Xavier’s pistol cast 9-mm cartridge casings into a flower bed and around a trailer parked at the curb as the father tried to evade being shot by his son in midafternoon, in the open in front of four landscapers.
Before Gene fell, Xavier chased his father as if he were a dog, prosecutor Anthony Salinas said on Wednesday in the state’s opening statement in Xavier’s murder trial in a state district court in Tarrant County.
“You’re going to see this was cold-blooded, premeditated murder,” Salinas forecast.
Then 27, Xavier was exasperated with what he assessed were his father’s failings in mishandling Xavier’s upbringing and Xavier’s troubled mother, attorney Lisa Hoobler suggested to the jury in the defense opening statement.
“Gene didn’t deserve to die for what he did, but what he did got him killed,” Hoobler said.
Xavier believed his father should not have left him for eight years to struggle in the custody of his mentally-ill mother.
Just before the beginning of evidence presentation on Tuesday, Xavier pleaded guilty to murder. The jury in the 372nd District Court was on Wednesday continuing to consider evidence in the trial’s second phase and will assess his punishment.
The jury will be instructed to consider a prison term of five to 99 years, or life. Defense attorneys Hoobler and Abe Factor have suggested they will request that Justice Lee Gabriel, who is presiding at the trial, include in the jury’s instructions an advisory on sudden passion. If the advisory is included and the jury finds that Xavier was under the immediate influence of sudden passion, the panel would consider a prison term of two to 20 years.
Master Sgt. Gene Bass, left, a JROTC instructor at North Crowley High School, was killed in a shooting outside his Fort Worth home on Friday, June 28, 2024. Screenshot from video Crowley ISD
Gene Bass, who deployed to Iraq during his time in the Army, died in front of his neighbor’s house in the 4400 block of Chesapeake Bay Drive. The upper half of his body stretched across a sidewalk and its lower half was in grass.
Emptying two magazines, Xavier fired about 25 rounds upon Gene, who was 54 and worked as a JROTC teacher in the Crowley Independent School District, Salinas said. Twelve bullets entered his body, including one in his head.
Xavier drove away from the killing scene after the shooting and returned to Georgia, where he was arrested at his apartment.
This story was originally published August 5, 2026 at 11:25 AM.
Related Stories from Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
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.