Travis County prosecutors closed the book on a strange homicide Friday when Assistant District Attorney Efrain De La Fuente secured a conviction on manslaughter charges against Joseph Mobley. Mobley, 34, was arrested on Oct. 6, 2014, after beating 25-year-old Dwayne Guidry over the head with a hammer and strangling him to death. The two came into contact when Mobley – while seated in his car at a Domino’s Pizza in South Austin with his wife and children – noticed Guidry jump into a silver Ford Mustang with the engine running and take off. (According to an affidavit, a delivery driver ran out of the shop a few moments later shouting about his stolen car.) Mobley followed Guidry out of the parking lot and pursued until Guidry turned into a housing subdivision – which Mobley then blocked Guidry into with his vehicle. The two both reportedly left their vehicles after Guidry, in an attempt to escape, drove the Mustang into Mobley’s car. Mobley asked his son to hand him a hammer he kept in the backseat of his car. From there, he chased Guidry on foot until eventually apprehending him, at which point he hit Guidry over the back of his head with the hammer and put him in a choke hold, which eventually killed him. A Travis County jury agreed that Mobley did recklessly cause Guidry’s death, and convicted him for manslaughter, a second-degree felony punishable by two to 20 years and up to $10,000 in fines. He accepted a plea deal for a five-year prison sentence.
This article appears in March 10 • 2017.