Man Faces Manslaughter Charge From Post-Superbowl Shooting

SAN ANGELO, TEXAS -- Crime scene tape stretched across a half block at 1002 Martin Luther King St. on Feb. 1, where several officers, detectives and crime scene technicians worked the scene of a drive-by-gone-murder in the flash of red and blue lights.

A single shot penetrated a plexiglass door at Eva’s Place and three more punched holes in the building’s façade, half of their spent PMC 40 Smith and Wesson casings lying before the building on the sidewalk and the street.

San Angelo police officer Tina Burks was the first to arrive on scene that night at 9:11 p.m., a complaint filed with the court states. Upon entering, she found victim Bertha Vasquez lying on the floor near the bar, struck and suffering from a gunshot wound.

A patron inside the bar then turned and put a spent bullet in the officer’s hand, a bullet he said he’d retrieved from the top of the bar that is now believed to be the one that claimed Vasquez’s life.

As the victim was transported to the hospital, investigators quietly descended upon the bar, looking for clues to what had started as a drive-by shooting and had escalated to a homicide.

On the other side of town, less than an hour later, at 10:07 p.m., TxDPS Trooper Alan Dykstra was conducting a traffic stop on 28-year-old Jason Scott Little, who was behind the wheel of a black Dodge Charger and was suspected of driving while intoxicated.

SAPD officer Daniel Welch arrived at the La Quinta Inn parking lot to assist, and during a search of the car, located a Smith and Wesson .40 caliber handgun under the front passenger seat. A magazine was also found, filled with bullets of the same brand and caliber of those used the Eva’s Place shooting.

The following morning, on Feb. 2, SAPD CSI tech Jessica Stevens took the spent bullet, casings and the .40 caliber pistol from Little’s car to the DPS crime lab in Lubbock, where tests confirmed the bullets had been fired from the pistol.

While Stevens was at the crime lab, Det. Lynn Dye tied another vehicle to the crime when he located a gray 2012 Toyota Tundra that was registered to Little. In the bed of the truck, Dye found another .40 caliber bullet casing in the same brand as the others. A search warrant for the vehicle was executed on Feb. 5.

The truck also made an appearance on the night of the murder, when it was captured leaving the area of Eva’s Place around the time of the shooting on surveillance footage from a building in the 900 block of MLK, the complaint states.

Little was booked into the county jail on Feb. 2 for DWI, unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon and a parole violation. Murder was added to his charges on Feb. 6.

UPDATE: 11:15 a.m. MAY 31, 2017 - Yantis Green

Jason Scott Little faces a jury trial for manslaughter on August 14, 2017.  He was in court today in the Tom Green County courthouse for a pre-trial hearing.  

391st District Judge Brad Goodwin today gave prosecutors and defense attorneys until the end of the day on June 16, 2017 to detail any motions or issues that need to be addressed before the trial begins on August 14. The pretrial hearing lasted about half an hour.  

119th District Attorney John Best and Defense Attorney Evan Pierce-Jones told the judge they expected to be ready for trial by August 14, and agreed that the trial would last about two weeks. Best and Jones both agreed that video evidence of the shooting would need to be finalized before the trial.  

Jones said they had about 20 hours of video to go through including car videos and surveillance videos. Furthermore, there were some formatting issues that need to be addressed. Goodwin told the attorneys he wanted to avoid any last minute hiccups that could postpone the trial.