Jurors rejected Romi Frentescu’s self-defense claim after hearing competing accounts of the deadly roadside confrontation and his return to the scene.

WACO, Texas — A former officer of a Central Texas motorcycle group has been sentenced to life in prison without parole after a jury convicted him of capital murder in the 2024 shooting deaths of a father and his 18-year-old son at a rural intersection south of Waco.

Romi Frentescu, 33, was convicted Aug. 12 in the deaths of Michael David Morris, 38, and Morris’ son, Braxton Johnson. Jurors deliberated for about an hour before reaching the verdict. Because McLennan County prosecutors did not seek the death penalty, the capital murder conviction carried an automatic sentence of life without the possibility of parole. The verdict ended a trial that focused on a bitter dispute between men associated with rival motorcycle groups, sharply different accounts of how the confrontation began and testimony that Frentescu returned to the scene after the shooting while a nurse was trying to save one of the victims.

The killings occurred in October 2024 near the intersection of Mackey Ranch Road and Old Moody Road in the Bruceville-Eddy area, about 20 miles south of Waco. Trial testimony showed that Frentescu and Morris knew each other and had a history of conflict. Frentescu was described in court as a former secretary of the Ugly Man Cossacks motorcycle group, while Morris was associated with a splinter organization known as the Cossacks 1%ers. A Texas Department of Public Safety gang expert testified that tension had developed between the groups after a split and that acts of disrespect between members could carry particular meaning within that environment. Prosecutors argued that the existing hostility helped explain why the roadside encounter turned deadly.

Brian Pugh, a friend of Morris who said he had been living in a garage apartment at Morris’ home, provided one of the prosecution’s central eyewitness accounts. Pugh testified that he, Morris and Johnson had returned from trying to help someone repair a motorcycle when Frentescu rode near the home and revved his motorcycle. Morris then got on his own motorcycle and followed him. Pugh and Johnson followed in Morris’ pickup truck. According to Pugh, the two motorcyclists stopped at the rural intersection and appeared ready to fight. Johnson got out of the truck and moved toward his father, and Morris motioned for him to stop. Pugh testified that Frentescu then stepped back, drew a handgun and opened fire.

Pugh said Frentescu fired at both Morris and Johnson before turning his attention toward him. Pugh testified that he tried to take cover near the truck and trailer as Frentescu pointed the gun in his direction. Pugh then attempted to drive from the area and ran over Frentescu’s motorcycle while maneuvering around the scene. Frentescu left in a red pickup, according to testimony. Medical evidence presented to jurors established that both Morris and Johnson died from gunshot wounds. Prosecutors used Pugh’s account to challenge the defense contention that Frentescu had fired only because he believed he faced a deadly attack. Pugh said he did not see Morris display a knife.

The scene did not end when Frentescu left. Passersby began stopping, initially believing they had come upon a traffic or motorcycle crash. Dorothy Sanders, a Veterans Affairs nurse who was traveling through the area with members of her family, began performing CPR on Morris. She testified that a red pickup returned and that Frentescu approached while she was attempting to maintain Morris’ faint pulse. Sanders told jurors that Frentescu ordered her to stop and threatened her if she continued. Other witnesses described hearing him demand that aid be stopped. Sanders testified that she backed away because she feared she could be shot in front of her husband and son. Her account became some of the trial’s most consequential testimony about what happened immediately after the gunfire.

Frentescu took the witness stand and gave jurors a different version of the encounter. He said Morris had repeatedly harassed him before the shooting and had made threats involving his home, family and dog. Frentescu testified that Morris had driven near his home on the day of the killings, revved his motorcycle and made an obscene gesture. Frentescu acknowledged riding to Morris’ home afterward and then traveling to the intersection, where Morris followed. He maintained that he wanted to talk with Morris and tell him to stop the harassment, not arrange a killing. He described the confrontation as a fistfight that became life-threatening after Morris allegedly produced a switchblade and Johnson struck him in the head.

According to Frentescu, the blow from Johnson knocked him down and left him struggling to move. He said he drew his handgun while trying to retreat and fired because he believed the two men were advancing on him. The defense argued that the shootings were lawful self-defense and portrayed Morris as the aggressor in a feud that had been building for some time. Defense attorney Russ Hunt Jr. told jurors at the beginning of the trial that Frentescu had previously tried to defuse confrontations with Morris. The defense account, however, conflicted with prosecution witnesses who said they did not see Morris holding a knife and who described Frentescu as standing when he fired.

Prosecutors also presented testimony that they said showed the encounter was not an unexpected act of self-preservation. A jail witness testified that Frentescu later described drawing Morris away from his home so he would follow him. Frentescu denied making the statements attributed to him. Prosecutor Christi Hunting Horse pressed him about his decision to follow the dispute rather than call police despite his testimony that Morris had threatened and harassed him before. The state argued that Frentescu’s actions before the fight, the eyewitness accounts of the gunfire and his alleged conduct when he returned to the wounded men all pointed away from the self-defense explanation.

The broader motorcycle-group dispute was introduced to help jurors understand the relationship between the men rather than as a substitute for evidence about the shooting itself. A state gang expert testified that the Ugly Man Cossacks and Cossacks 1%ers had become hostile after a split. The witness also described a reported directive against members of the splinter group. Morris’ association with the 1%ers and Frentescu’s position with the Ugly Man Cossacks formed part of the prosecution’s explanation for the hostility. The defense did not dispute that bad blood existed but argued that the history cut the other way: Morris, it said, had been the person pursuing and threatening Frentescu before the confrontation.

The case had been pending since shortly after the killings. County records show Frentescu was arrested in October 2024 and later indicted on a capital murder charge. Other allegations connected with the episode had included aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, tampering with evidence and a terroristic threat, but the capital murder count placed the greatest consequence before the jury. Under Texas law, the charge applied to the killing of more than one person during the same criminal episode. Once jurors returned their guilty verdict and prosecutors had already elected not to seek execution, the punishment did not require a separate jury decision: life imprisonment without parole followed from the conviction.

Frentescu’s wife, Alyssa Marleen Sevilla, had also been arrested during the investigation as authorities examined her alleged role in events surrounding the shooting and the handling of evidence. At Frentescu’s trial, she was identified as a potential defense witness but invoked her Fifth Amendment right not to testify while accompanied by her own lawyer. Reporting at the conclusion of the trial said she had not been indicted on the allegations for which she was arrested. Jurors therefore reached their decision about Frentescu based on the testimony and evidence presented against him, including eyewitness descriptions, medical findings, the nurse’s account, evidence about the motorcycle-group rivalry and Frentescu’s own testimony.

The jury’s verdict resolved the central dispute presented at trial: whether the fatal shots were justified self-defense or capital murder. Jurors rejected Frentescu’s account and convicted him after roughly an hour of deliberations. He is now serving a sentence of life without parole. No later public reporting located through Sept. 22 indicated that an appellate court had disturbed the conviction or sentence.

Author note: Last updated Sept. 22, 2026.