Jer Auntey Pleasant used Grindr to arrange meetings before two men were shot on consecutive days in April 2023, say prosecutors.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas — A Bexar County judge sentenced Jer Auntey Pleasant to four concurrent 50-year prison terms after prosecutors said he used a dating app to lure two men to meetings on consecutive days in April 2023, then killed them in separate shootings in San Antonio.

The punishment, imposed in the 186th District Court, covered the killings of Larry Wilson, 54, and Joseph West, 22, along with convictions for aggravated robbery and aggravated sexual assault of a child. The sentence matters now because it wraps several violent cases into one outcome and marks the formal end of a prosecution built on phone messages, fingerprint evidence, ballistics testing and earlier allegations that prosecutors said showed a repeated pattern.

The case that drew the most public attention began late on April 14, 2023, at the Banyan Tree Apartments off Cross Creek near Loop 410. Investigators said Wilson had exchanged messages on Grindr with someone calling himself “Derek” and agreed to meet that night. Wilson drove to the complex in a white Ford SUV and told the other man where he was parked, according to court records described by local stations. Witnesses later told police they saw a man in a red hoodie standing on the passenger side and firing several shots into the vehicle just before 11 p.m. Officers found Wilson dead in the driver’s seat. Larry Wilson’s brother, Johnny Wilson, later told local television, “I feel in my heart he was set up,” as the family tried to understand how a planned meeting ended in gunfire.

By the next day, investigators were dealing with a second killing. Police responding to a welfare check at an apartment complex on Von Scheele Drive found West face down on a bed with a fatal gunshot wound to the back of the head. A friend had gone looking for him after not hearing from him and looked through a window before calling 911. Detectives learned that West also used dating apps and had communicated with the suspect before his death. What turned two separate homicide scenes into one investigation, prosecutors said, was the physical evidence. Police recovered fingerprint evidence on condom wrappers tied to Pleasant at both scenes, and his prints were also reported inside West’s vehicle. Ballistics testing later linked shell casings from the two killings to the same 9 mm firearm, giving detectives a direct forensic bridge between the deaths.

Prosecutors said the April 2023 murders were not isolated crimes but part of a larger run of violent conduct. They said Pleasant had carried out an aggravated robbery in March 2022 after meeting another victim through the same dating app, then shot that victim during the robbery attempt. In July 2022, prosecutors said, Pleasant sexually assaulted a 13-year-old child, with DNA evidence later identifying him in that case. Those earlier convictions became part of the final sentencing package announced in March 2026. Together, the cases gave jurors and the court a longer timeline than the two murders alone and let prosecutors argue that the killings fit a recurring method built around arranging private encounters, isolating victims and then using violence.

Judge Kristina Escalona handed down the punishment as four 50-year terms that run at the same time, meaning Pleasant was sentenced to an effective 50-year prison term rather than back-to-back terms totaling 200 years in custody. Prosecutors nevertheless described the ruling as accountability across all four convictions. Bexar County District Attorney Joe Gonzales said in a statement that the outcome would not restore the lives that were lost but did represent a step toward justice for the victims and their loved ones. Public records cited in early coverage showed Pleasant was arrested in April 2023 and initially held on bonds totaling $700,000 on the murder charges. The sentencing brought the case from those first arrest affidavits to a final judgment nearly three years later.

The details that stayed with people in San Antonio were not only the forensic links but the ordinary settings where the killings happened: a parked SUV at an apartment complex near Windcrest and a bedroom in the Medical Center area where a friend came looking after silence stretched too long. Wilson’s relatives described him in local interviews as generous, a detail that sharpened their belief that he had been drawn into a trap. West’s death entered the public record through the language of a welfare check, a phrase that underscored how quickly everyday concern turned into a homicide case. Prosecutors did not publicly answer every question, including what precisely happened in the final moments before each shot was fired or whether any property was taken in the second killing, but they said the evidence was strong enough to secure convictions.

As of April 2, 2026, Pleasant’s sentence stands as the latest public milestone in the case. The immediate next step is any post-conviction filing that could follow in state court, while the factual record presented by prosecutors now centers on the same point they argued from the start: two men were killed on back-to-back days after meetings arranged through an app.

Author note: Last updated April 2, 2026.