A capital murder verdict followed a 2024 fire that investigators said was set at the home’s exits.
GALVESTON, Texas — Firefighters broke through a bedroom window and rescued three people from a burning Galveston home in February 2024, but Renita Hawthorne was trapped inside and later became the victim in a capital murder case.
The rescue became the first chapter in a prosecution that ended more than two years later with Courtney Allen Thompson Jr. sentenced to life in prison without parole. Jurors found Thompson guilty of setting the fire that killed Hawthorne, 55, after prosecutors said he helped carry out retaliation tied to an unpaid drug debt owed by her son. The son was not in the house when flames blocked exits, but Hawthorne, two children and another person were inside.
Emergency crews were called to the 700 block of 39th Street on Feb. 29, 2024, after a house fire trapped four residents. The home also was identified in reports as 715 39th Street near Avenue H. Firefighters found people trying to escape through a bedroom window. They broke the window, used a ladder and pulled out three survivors, including two children. Hawthorne remained inside. She was found unconscious and taken to the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Officials later said she died from carbon monoxide poisoning and thermal injuries. The difference between those rescued and Hawthorne, prosecutors said, came down to where the fire had been set and how quickly it cut off the normal paths out of the home.
Fire investigators determined that the blaze was not accidental. The Galveston Fire Marshal’s Office found fires had been intentionally set on both sets of outside stairs. An arson dog detected accelerant on the stairs, strengthening the conclusion that the flames had been placed where they would stop people from leaving. Prosecutors told jurors that gasoline was poured at the entry points and that the placement made the house nearly impossible to escape without firefighters. That physical evidence drove the case away from a simple fire investigation and toward a homicide prosecution, because Hawthorne’s death followed from conditions investigators said were deliberately created.
Detectives then worked backward from the fire scene. Surveillance video showed a black SUV in the neighborhood before the flames erupted. The vehicle stopped, and two men walked toward the home. One of them carried a gas can. Soon afterward, the men were seen running away without the can, and fire spread at the house. Prosecutors said the video lined up with other evidence collected after a traffic stop and cellphone review. That evidence led investigators to a gas station on 53rd Street, where video showed Thompson and another man buying and filling a gas can hours before the fire. The state used that sequence to show preparation, arrival at the home and flight from the scene.
The motive evidence came from a separate trail of threats. Hawthorne’s son testified that he owed a drug debt and had been threatened by Xavier Faison, also known as Saccathon. Faison was not charged in the arson, but his name appeared throughout accounts of the case. Messages sent before the fire included “See y’all ready to play” and a reference to the truck Hawthorne drove with a busted window. Prosecutors said those words mattered because they showed the pressure was aimed not only at Hawthorne’s son but also at his family. The son, described as the target of the debt threats, was away when the fire was set.
At trial, jurors heard that Thompson later spoke about the fire while in jail. A jailhouse informant testified that Thompson admitted setting it and said he had been hired in retaliation for the drug debt. The informant said he went to police because Thompson was bragging about killing an innocent woman. Prosecutors also said Faison bragged in an Instagram video after the fire, saying he was prepared to burn down all of Galveston and hoped Hawthorne was dead. The public reports do not show Faison was charged in connection with the fire. Thompson, however, was charged with capital murder and became the defendant whose conduct jurors had to decide.
Adam Poole, chief of the felony division in the Galveston County District Attorney’s Office, argued that the fire’s placement showed an intent to kill everyone inside. In closing arguments, Poole said Thompson’s actions were like building a tomb and setting it on fire. He also referred to one of Thompson’s Instagram posts while arguing that Thompson treated Hawthorne as money he could show off online. The prosecution’s theory did not depend on Hawthorne being the original target. It depended on the claim that Thompson intentionally set a deadly fire at a home where people were inside and where the exits were blocked by flames.
The jury heard the case beginning April 27, 2026. Deliberations started May 1, then paused for the weekend. Jurors returned May 4 and found Thompson guilty of capital murder. The conviction carried an automatic life sentence without the possibility of parole. The sentence means Thompson will not be eligible for release through parole under the judgment reported in the case. Public accounts did not report that any other person had been convicted for the fire, leaving Thompson’s verdict as the central legal result from the arson that killed Hawthorne.
The scene that first drew firefighters to 39th Street remained the core of the case through trial. Three people survived because crews reached a window. Hawthorne did not survive because smoke, heat and blocked exits left her inside long enough for fatal injuries. Prosecutors described that outcome as the foreseeable result of setting fire to the home’s escape routes. Defense arguments were not described in detail in the public accounts, but jurors accepted the state’s version after reviewing the fire findings, video evidence, threats, gas station footage and testimony from the informant.
The criminal case against Thompson has moved beyond trial after jurors accepted the state’s account of the 39th Street fire. The surviving residents escaped through a bedroom window; Hawthorne’s death remains the fatal outcome that drove the capital murder charge.
Author note: Last updated May 26, 2026.