by: Erica Miller
ECTOR COUNTY, Texas (KMID/KPEJ)- An Ector County Jury sentenced Billy Joe Campbell to life in prison and a $10,000 fine for the 2021 murder of his elderly mother.
The sentencing came after a passioinate closing argument from the prosecution, “Think about this man. Every time he beat his mother, he earned a life sentence. Every time he didn’t feed her, he earned a life sentence…he was convicted of murder (in the late 90s). He did his prison time and his mother let him live with her and he murdered her. He tortured her…the person who loved him, who cared for him, let him into her home, and he murdered her.”
Ector County jurors convict Billy Joe Campbell of murder in connection with the 2021 beating death of his mother.“What we heard from all the witnesses…the cruelty…the squalor that that man was keeping Carol in…there was not one part of her body that was not beaten, not one single part,” prosecutors said after testimony concluded in the murder trial of Billy Joe Campbell.
“What we heard from all the witnesses…the cruelty…the squalor that that man was keeping Carol in…there was not one part of her body that was not beaten, not one single part,” prosecutors said after testimony concluded in the murder trial of Billy Joe Campbell.
Defense attorneys for the suspect; however, painted a different picture and said that the state did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Billy Joe was guilty.
“It was an unattended death- this lady had multiple different indicators on how ill she was. She was 84, she was very, very sick. She might’ve fallen off the bed…we don’t know what happened in that house. No one does, the state hasn’t been able to prove it,” the defense team argued during their closing arguments.
The state, which always has the last word during closing, then left the jury with this, “You know what she is to him? $15,000 (left to the defendant as part of Carol’s will). Sitting in that house of horrors, that’s what she was to him, a paycheck.”
With that, jurors left to deliberate and returned with a guilty verdict within 15 minutes.
The sentencing portion of the trial is next.
Testimony continued Tuesday in the murder trial against Billy Joe Campbell, an Ector County man accused of murdering his 84-year-old mother in 2021.
When the trial began on Monday, defense attorneys said that the victim, Carol Campbell, had been sick for a long time and that Billy Joe, her sole caretaker, was not responsible for her death.
“People die every day,” they said during opening arguments. “The state has apparently decided that unattended death means murder. This is not murder.”
However, prosecutors for the state said that Carol was found with multiple bruises and cuts and had been neglected long before her death.
In fact, one of the first witnesses for the state, a neighbor who lived in an RV on Carol’s property, said that Carol confided in him multiple times that her son was abusive.
“He hits me,” she reportedly whispered to the witness on at least three occasions.
That same neighbor testified that he tried to speak with Carol the day before she died, but Billy Joe reportedly denied his request.
An investigator with Adult Protective Services testified as well and said that Carol told him she’d been hit by her son. But the investigation into that abuse stalled because APS was unable to make contact with the family again and Carol died a couple of months later.
On Tuesday, testimony began as Carol’s grandchild told jurors that other family members had been helping with Carol’s care over the years, but eventually, Billy Joe became the sole caretaker after all of Carol’s other children died.
The granddaughter further testified that her uncle told her that everything was his once Carol died, and he made threats against other family members and denied them access to the victim in the weeks leading up to her death.
The witness said she called area law enforcement several times for help, to no avail.
She described her grandmother as funny and told the court how she worked as a nurse who worked with children with special needs in Kermit for years before retirement.
Despite their close relationship, she testified that she didn’t get to see her grandmother in her final months of life because of Billy Joe.
Next, jurors heard from Dr. Luisa Florez, who performed the autopsy on Carol. She testified that Carol died from blunt force trauma to the head. Among the injuries identified during the autopsy, Florez identified 24 rib fractures, a fracture to the cervical vertebrae, right elbow, and left forearm. Additionally, Dr. Florez noted that Carol weighed only 54 pounds at the time of her death, was filthy, and covered in bruises and bedsores.
Defense attorneys then asked if those injuries could have been caused by dogs on the property, but Dr. Florez denied that possibility.
We will continue to update this story as the trial continues.
An Ector County man previously convicted of murder in the 1996 shooting death of an Odessa man is facing a jury once again, this time in connection with the 2021 death of his elderly mother. Billy Joe Campbell has been charged with Murder, and his trial is set to begin Monday morning.
According to court records, on August 22, 2021, deputies with the Ector County Sheriff’s Office were called to a home in the 1500 block of N Avenue I in reference to an unattended death; at the scene, investigators found Carol Hill Campbell dead in her bed with obvious injuries, including cuts and bruises, to her face and body. Also at the scene, deputies met with Billy Joe, Carol’s son, who told them that he lived with the victim and was her sole caretaker.
Because of the injuries to Carol’s body, and after learning of an Adult Protective Services investigation that began earlier that same year after Carol sustained a broken hip, investigators requested an autopsy; the preliminary report showed that Carol died from a subdural hematoma from blunt force trauma to her head. Other findings included multiple fractures throughout the victim’s body and signs of neglect.
Initially, Billy Joe was charged with Injury to the Elderly, however, further investigation revealed that in April of 2021, Carol made an outcry of abuse against her son and claimed he pushed her, which caused the broken hip. Based on the findings of the autopsy, and other witness statements, the charges against Billy Joe were upgraded to Murder.
He’s been awaiting trial since his arrest in October of 2021.
Billy Joe was previously convicted of murder in connection with the 1996 shooting death of 31-year-old Adrian Arenivas. According to Odessa American archives, Arenivas was found by hikers on September 2, 1996, near the area of University Boulevard and Westcliff Street. Prosecutors said Billy Joe and an accomplice shot Arenivas in the head and then abandoned his Jeep in Mexico. Billy Joe was sentenced to 10 years in prison upon his conviction.
Should Billy Joe be convicted in his mother’s death, he faces a sentence of five years to life. We will update this story as his trial continues.
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UPDATE: Billy Joe Campbell sentenced to life in prison for murdering elderly mother
