Darlene Gentry Murder Case: Sting, 60-Year Sentence, and Parole

The Darlene Gentry murder case ended with a Texas jury convicting the Waco-area nurse of shooting her husband, Waymon Keith Gentry, in the head at their Robinson home on November 9, 2005. She was sentenced in February 2007 to sixty years in prison, lost her direct appeal in 2008, and had her request for a new trial denied by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 2017. She is held at the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville and becomes eligible for parole around 2037.¹

The Morning of the Shooting

At about 6:11 a.m. on November 9, 2005, Darlene Gentry called 911 and reported that her husband Keith had been shot. She told officers she had slept in her children’s room because the boys were ill, woke to find the back door open and Keith’s gun cabinet empty, and then discovered Keith in their bedroom with a gunshot wound to the head. He was taken to a hospital and died later that day. Keith was 31. Their three sons were three, four, and six.²

Officers on scene were skeptical within minutes. There were no signs of forced entry. The gun cabinet did not appear to have been broken into, and a stack of weapons had been placed outside the front door in what looked like a staged scene. Investigators also noted that Darlene, a trained nurse, had made no effort to render medical aid to her husband.³

Darlene consented to a search. In the kitchen trash, investigators found a pair of latex gloves containing a .22-caliber bullet casing. Testing by the Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Lab confirmed gunshot residue on the gloves and identified DNA profiles matching both Darlene and Keith. When police tried to keep questioning her that night, she invoked her Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights. She was arrested on November 28, 2005.⁴

The Pond, the Gun, and the Sting

The case broke open because of what Darlene did while she was out on bond. She approached an acquaintance, Robert Pavelka, about buying property. She showed particular interest in a piece of land with a pond, telling him her husband “always wanted a place where he could take his sons fishing.” Weeks later, she asked Pavelka to fill the pond in.⁴

Pavelka thought the request was strange and went to a friend at the McLennan County Sheriff’s Office, who put him in touch with Texas Rangers Matt Cawthon and Steve Foster. With Pavelka’s consent, a Texas DPS dive team searched the pond and recovered a .22-caliber revolver, the weapon missing from Keith’s gun cabinet.⁴

The Rangers then set a trap. Pavelka was instructed to tell Darlene he would drain the pond before filling it, and she was told the pump had broken so she would come to the property. When she arrived, Cawthon and Foster were hidden in the brush with a video camera. They recorded her in knee-high wading boots, walking into the water and probing the bottom with a stick in the exact spot where the revolver had been pulled out. The appellate court later described the setup as “excellent police work.”⁴

The Motive

Prosecutors argued Darlene killed Keith for money. Detectives determined he was covered by two life insurance policies totaling roughly $750,000.³ Combined with the absence of forced entry, the staged crime scene, the residue-and-DNA gloves, and her later effort to conceal the murder weapon, the state built its case around a deliberate killing for the insurance payout.

The Trial and 60-Year Sentence

Darlene Gentry was tried for murder in McLennan County. McLennan County Criminal District Attorney John W. Segrest prosecuted. Michael S. McNeely of Baytown represented her.⁴ The pond video was the centerpiece. On February 6, 2007, the jury found her guilty and set her punishment at sixty years in prison. The three boys had been asleep down the hall the night their father was shot.²

The Appeals

Gentry appealed to the Court of Appeals of Texas in Waco. On June 11, 2008, the court affirmed her conviction. Her strongest argument was that the Texas Rangers had violated her Sixth Amendment right to counsel by using Pavelka to gather evidence while she was out on bond. The court held her right to counsel had not yet attached because formal adversary judicial proceedings had not begun at the time of the pond surveillance, and that even if it had attached, the encounters with Pavelka were not a “critical stage” of prosecution requiring counsel. The court also rejected her requests for a change of venue, admission of medical records suggesting a third-party motive, and a jury poll about a newspaper article that ran on the day of sentencing.⁴

In February 2010, she filed a state application for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging the pond video had been improperly admitted, that her trial counsel was ineffective, and that evidence had been withheld from her defense. In June 2010, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered additional hearings, stating she “has alleged facts that, if true, might entitle her to relief.”⁵

The proceedings dragged. 19th State District Judge Ralph Strother recused himself after Gentry filed formal complaints alleging bias, and visiting Judge Bert Richardson of San Antonio was assigned. The petition sat for more than five years. In July 2017, Judge Richardson recommended denial. In November 2017, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agreed and denied the application, leaving the conviction in place.¹

Where She Is Now and When She Could Be Released

Darlene Gentry is incarcerated at the Mountain View Unit in Gatesville, Texas. She must serve thirty years before she becomes eligible for parole, which puts her earliest possible release around 2037.¹ A 2010 court order bars her from any contact with her three sons, who were raised by their paternal grandparents after her arrest.⁶

1
Waco Tribune-Herald. Court of Criminal Appeals Denies New Murder Trial for Gentry
2
Houston Chronicle. Waco Nurse Gets 60 Years for Killing Husband
3
Oxygen. Did This Texas Homecoming Queen Shoot Her Husband in the Head for Insurance Money
4
Findlaw. Gentry v. State, No. 10-07-00052-CR
5
Waco Tribune-Herald. Darlene Gentry’s Request for New Murder Trial Pending More Than 5 Years
6
Waco Tribune-Herald. Custody of Children Left After Gentry Murder Conviction Appears Settled