A Grand Prairie man has been sentenced to life in prison after a Tarrant County jury found him guilty of killing his wife and stepson in 2020.

Rickey Wayne Edwards, 54, represented himself in the trial, which ran from October 3 to 9.

While Edwards claimed that he had acted in self-defense, the prosecution depicted the murders as cold-blooded executions.

“This case is about family violence, rage, and control,” Robert Huseman, assistant district attorney, told jurors, according to CBS News Texas. “When his wife and stepson lay bleeding on the floor, an hour before calling 911, he went out and moved his Lexus and put up the sunscreen so his seats didn’t get damaged.”

The fatal domestic incident occurred as Edwards and his wife Portia Williams-Edwards, 46, were moving into their new home on Monet Lane on May 3, 2020.

Yet she had grown concerned about her husband’s behavior, according to testimony from her father. She reportedly told him in a phone call that Edwards had been “acting crazy,” hitting her and threatening her at gunpoint, according to The Dallas Morning News.

Williams-Edwards also made a call to her son Kameion Kitchen, 28, who went to the couples’ home.

After an altercation between stepfather and stepson, investigators claim Edwards shot Kitchen 10 times before turning the Glock pistol on his wife, shooting her twice in the head. Both victims were dead when first responders arrived at the scene.

As former Grand Prairie officer Jaren Edwards testified in court, Edwards was wearing a bloodstained tank top and told him, “I did it,” at the scene, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Edwards was taken into custody shortly thereafter on capital murder charges.

He contended during the trial that he had been knocked out by Kitchen and the mother and son were pinning him down when he came to.

“I was begging for my life,” Edwards testified. He claimed to have later fired a warning shot but then acknowledged in a confused account to having shot both victims.

“I had no reason to kill my wife,” he said.

However, the jury found him culpable after deliberating for 14 minutes.

Capital murder charges in Texas are punishable by life in prison without parole or the death penalty due to them being considered homicides committed under aggravating circumstances.

Just recently in Dallas, three young people were taken into custody on capital murder charges for a fatal shooting in north Oak Cliff, as covered in The Dallas Express. The 23-year-old victim Davron Williams was found by police and transported to a nearby hospital, but he ultimately died from his gunshot wounds.

It is currently unknown what exactly led to Williams’ death and how the three suspects — Jakyri Fulce, 19, Marque Khourn, 18, and Jaelynn Alamillo, 19 — figured into it.

Dallas has seen 198 homicides this year, representing an increase of 10% as of October 10 over the same time period last year, according to the Dallas crime analytics overview dashboard.

Efforts to curb crime have been hindered by a shortage of officers in the Dallas Police Department. A city study indicates that 4,000 officers would be needed to adequately manage crime in a city the size of Dallas. Yet there are currently less than 3,200 officers sworn in, with the vast majority of residents suggesting that this isn’t enough to keep the streets safe, according to polls conducted by The Dallas Express this summer.

Neighboring Fort Worth has implemented a designated police unit aided by private security guards to monitor its city center, helping to mitigate its crime rate, which is much lower than that of Downtown Dallas. This is especially true of assaults and auto thefts, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.