578/16/2023
By ADAM ZUVANICH / LUCIO VASQUEZ
After seven years and two mistrials, Houston resident Antonio "A.J." Armstrong Jr. was convicted of murdering his parents while they slept in their Bellaire-area townhome.
A Harris County jury issued a guilty verdict Wednesday, following 11 days of witness testimony and arguments by Armstrong Jr.'s defense team and prosecutors for the Harris County District Attorney's Office. The high-profile case had dragged on for years as two previous juries could not reach a consensus on a verdict in 2019 and 2022.
The 23-year-old Armstrong Jr. was 16 at the time his parents, Dawn and Antonio Armstrong Sr., were shot to death during the early hours of July 29, 2016. The younger Armstrong faces a sentence of life in prison after being convicted of shooting them in the head with his father's .22-caliber pistol. He will have the possibility of parole in 40 years.
The third capital murder trial in the case was delayed for nearly two months after previously undiscovered DNA evidence was uncovered by an expert witness for the prosecution. Specks of blood were found under the adhesive name tag placed on Armstrong Jr.'s clothing when he was brought to the police department for questioning in the aftermath of the murders, and subsequent testing confirmed the DNA matched that of Armstrong Sr.
The new evidence could have made a difference for prosecutors, who also refuted a theory floated by the defense team that Armstrong Jr.'s older half-brother could have committed the murders because he lived nearby at the time and had mental health issues.