Morales Murder Update: Amateur boxer charged

Austin Police have charged 20-year-old amateur boxer Kurtiss "Lucky" Colvin with manslaughter, assault, and theft in connection with the June 19 beating death of 40-year-old David Morales. Witnesses told police that Colvin – a Golden Gloves pugilist who trained in East Austin with Don "Pops" Billingsley – knocked Morales to the ground with a single left hook, then later, while Morales was struggling to get up, struck again, delivering an uppercut that left the 40-year-old painter bloody and prone on the concrete near his sister's apartment in the Booker T. Washington complex.

On June 19, Morales caught a ride home from work with 36-year-old colleague Victor Medel. As Medel was pulling out of the parking lot in the 900 block of Thompson Street, he accidentally hit 2-year-old Michael Hosea Jr., who also lives in the complex. (As a precaution, Hosea's parents took him to Brackenridge Hospital; the toddler is fine.) Charles Bernard Davis, 23, told police that he was sitting in a nearby vehicle with three others – including Colvin – when the accident happened. Davis and another passenger, Brandon Cleveland, 18, told police they were approached by a woman who told them about the accident and said that Medel "was attempting to flee," Davis said, according to a warrant for Colvin's arrest filed by Austin Police Department Detective Frank Rodriguez. "Kurtiss jumped out of the car … and approached [Medel] … and struck [him] with his fist, through the driver's side window," reads the arrest affidavit. Davis said he saw Morales walk over to Medel's car in an attempt to "defend" Medel from the attack. Davis and Cleveland said they heard Colvin ask a woman standing nearby if she was acquainted with Morales; when the woman said no, Colvin turned and struck Morales, knocking him down. Colvin "hit him so hard that Morales fell straight to the ground on his face," Davis told Rodriguez. As Morales struggled to get up, nearby witness Claude Espinoza told Rodriguez, Colvin "walked up to him and punched him in the face with an uppercut." Morales was taken to Brackenridge where he was pronounced dead shortly before midnight. According to the Travis Co. Medical Examiner's Office, Morales was cut and bruised, had a broken rib and a skull fracture, and died as a result of the "blunt force trauma" to his head.

During an interview with police on June 20, Colvin told Homicide Detective K. Scanlon that he was at the scene and that he did knock Morales to the ground but that he did so only after "Morales displayed a gun," according to the affidavit. "However," Rodriguez noted, "no gun was found at the scene." Colvin also admitted rifling through Morales' wallet but said he picked it up off the ground where "three teenagers" had thrown it down – Colvin said he picked up Morales' ID in order to "give it to the family of the child that had been struck by the car," Rodriguez wrote in the affidavit. All three of the young men riding with Colvin told police they saw Colvin going through Morales' wallet and heard him make derisive comments about Morales being broke.

Colvin was arrested and booked into jail on July 5 with a $215,000 bond. Manslaughter is a second-degree felony punishable by between two and 20 years in state prison and up to a $10,000 fine.