Arrest made in one of Houston’s oldest unsolved murder cases<\/a><\/p>\nProsecutors earlier said Allison fought her assailant over her bag. Surveillance footage of the fatal clash was partially obscured by the video\u2019s time stamp, which police couldn’t remove, but a muzzle flash was visible, detective Michael Nicotra testified during the hearing. A photo of her bag shown in court also revealed a torn strap.<\/p>\n
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A crime scene evidence photo of the victim\u2019s purse is displayed on a screen during the bail hearing for Darius Hall in the 496th District Court in Houston on Thursday, March 26, 2026. Hall is charged with capital murder in the death of Marietta Allison.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
The video then showed the shooter \u201cvery casually walking away from the crime scene,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Allison\u2019s leather bag and its contents, including a wallet still holding $120 cash, were strewn about the sidewalk.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Cassie Daniel \u2014 the friend who traveled to Houston with Allison \u2014\u00a0observed the hearing alongside Allison\u2019s husband and brother-in-law. The group quickly left the courtroom following the judge’s decision.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Cassie Daniel, second from left, is shown during a bail hearing in the 496th District Court for Darius Hall, who is charged with capital murder in the death of her friend, Marietta Allison, in Houston Thursday, March 26, 2026.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
“Though her voice has been silenced, Marietta’s legacy endures as a call for responsibility, courage and accountability,” her husband, Forrest Allison, said in a later statement.<\/p>\n
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Hall’s past\u00a0<\/p>\n
The bail hearing comes nearly three weeks after Hall\u2019s arrest in connection with Allison\u2019s death and his flight from authorities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His defense attorney, Jose Julio Vela, disputed the quality of witness accounts \u2014 some people described the shooter\u2019s sweater as being different colors. He said there was a lack of evidence to explain what happened between the shooting and when authorities tracked Hall down about 45 minutes later.<\/p>\n
Police said they spotted the stolen Highlander idling outside a McDonald\u2019s restaurant.<\/p>\n
Hall, at the time, was rolling a joint\u00a0when a teen girl in the car hurriedly told him to \u201cgo,\u201d Nicotra said, citing his interview with Hall at police headquarters. The emergency lights on the officer\u2019s patrol vehicle came on and Hall sped away. His speeds reached around 120 mph as he nearly struck other cars.<\/p>\n
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Houston Police officer Anthony Vesely, left, with prosecutor Katie Rogers looks at photos on the witness stand during a bail hearing for\u00a0Darius Hall in the 496th District Court in Houston Thursday, March 26, 2026. Hall is charged with capital murder in the death of Marietta Allison.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Hall turned his vehicle\u2019s lights off in an attempt to shake officers before crashing along the 3100 block of Southwest Freeway in the Upper Kirby neighborhood, and fled for an apartment complex, where he was captured hours later.<\/p>\n
He attributed his decision to flee to other pending cases in the 314th District Court, which handles juvenile cases.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said he was on probation for crimes that other people had put on him,\u201d Nicotra testified.<\/p>\n
Hall confessed to fleeing police but not the shooting, authorities said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Prosecutor Katie Rogers outlined Hall\u2019s juvenile history at length during the hearing and expressed bewilderment at the prior court\u2019s decision in those cases. Hall was arrested in October 2023 for assaulting his father and similarly evading police. While on probation for those cases, he was charged in January 2024 in connection to an armed robbery.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor whatever reason, the court placed him on another probation,\u201d Rogers said.<\/p>\n
Vela did not offer witnesses or other evidence for the judge to consider.<\/p>\n
Although not discussed during the hearing, court records show Hall was shot and wounded at a north Houston hotel where he and his father were staying, in June 2022, more than a year before his rap sheet started, according to a civil lawsuit against the hotel filed about three weeks before the Heights shooting.<\/p>\n
Taft Foley, a civil attorney handling the case, said Hall was shot more than once and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. He was 16 at the time.<\/p>\n
The 37-year-old shooter, who was also staying at the hotel, was later convicted and imprisoned, according to court records.<\/p>\n
Evidence in Highlander<\/p>\n
A federal case against Hall in connection with the carjacking is also pending<\/a>, with no noticeable activity in court records since its inception. Behind the scenes, however, federal authorities are handling ballistics, fingerprints and DNA testing to expedite the results, prosecutors said. The results are pending.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"An]()
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An evidence photo taken in the floorboard of a vehicle of a small gun shaped lighter and an actual gun is displayed on a screen during the bail hearing for Darius Hall in the 496th District Court in Houston Thursday, March 26, 2026. Hall is charged with capital murder in the death of Marietta Allison.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Hall was charged with federal firearm and carjacking offenses. The complaint in that case states Houston police officers found two guns near the driver’s seat after Hall bolted from the vehicle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the guns, Nicotra revealed, turned out to be fake. Days later, after the initial news reports disclosed the second weapon, Nicotra picked up the realistic-looking firearm\u00a0and realized it was a novelty lighter.<\/p>\n
He also found a backpack that appeared to be similar to what Allison’s assailant was observed wearing in surveillance footage. Inside, Nicotra found Hall’s driver’s license and a tied-up sock containing dozens of unfired rounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Darius Hall, left, and his defense attorney, Jose Julio Vela, right, are shown during his bail hearing in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[86133,56,58,57],"class_list":["post-223165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-hc-crime","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}