The Fort Worth investigation began with people reporting an assault in progress and ended more than a year later with a life sentence.
FORT WORTH, Texas — The murder case against Steven Black began not with a cold crime scene or a long search for a suspect, but with witnesses reporting what they were seeing near a dumpster on South Jennings Avenue. Their observations helped Fort Worth police locate Black nearby and became part of the evidence that ultimately led a Tarrant County jury to convict him of murdering Susan Watkins.
Watkins, 50, was attacked on July 9, 2025, in the city’s Near Southside area and died at a hospital five days later. Black was later tried on a murder charge and sentenced to life in prison, with parole eligibility after 30 years. The progression from emergency call to conviction was built around a series of observations made in a relatively short period: a caller reporting a man stomping on a woman, other witnesses seeing an assault near a dumpster, an officer spotting a man who matched the description, and police collecting evidence from the area. Those details gave investigators an immediate starting point while Watkins was still alive and receiving medical care.
According to reporting based on the arrest affidavit, police received a call at about 8:45 a.m. from someone who said a man was stomping on a woman’s head. Two witnesses later told investigators they had seen a man kicking Watkins behind a dumpster in the 900 block of South Jennings Avenue. Another witness reported seeing a man with a rock and said he dropped it as officers arrived. Those accounts did not come from a single observer describing the entire episode from beginning to end. Instead, police assembled the sequence from people who had witnessed different portions of what happened. That distinction mattered because each account could be compared with the physical scene and with what responding officers encountered.
An officer who had been given a description saw a man matching it a short distance from Watkins, the affidavit said. When the officer tried to make contact, the man ran. Police caught and detained him and identified him as Black, then 47. The officer observed what appeared to be blood on the lower part of Black’s legs. Black did not say where it had come from, according to the affidavit. At the scene, investigators also had Watkins’ injuries, the witness descriptions and the rock or asphalt associated with the assault. Those circumstances allowed police to make an arrest without the prolonged identification process that sometimes follows a homicide discovered after the attacker has left.
Watkins had not yet died when the investigation started. Emergency responders took her to a hospital, and police initially were dealing with the aftermath of a severe assault. Her death five days later changed the case into a homicide investigation. The Star-Telegram reported at the time that investigators did not describe a relationship between Watkins and Black and did not identify a motive. Watkins’ family likewise said they believed the two may not have known each other. That left investigators with strong evidence about the physical sequence of the assault but a major unanswered question about why the encounter happened. The later trial would resolve criminal responsibility without publicly resolving that question.
By the time the case reached a jury in 2026, the state could present more than the first witness accounts. Prosecutors Tim Rodgers and Grayson Ezzell used testimony and the recovered piece of asphalt to argue that Black intentionally carried out a sustained fatal attack. Trial reporting described prosecutors displaying the object to jurors during closing arguments and emphasizing the repeated blows. The state argued the nature and duration of the assault demonstrated the intent necessary for murder. Black did not testify. His lawyers, Tim Brown and Kevin Novak, challenged the prosecution’s theory of intent, according to courtroom reporting, giving jurors the task of deciding not simply whether Black was the person involved but whether the state had proved the charged offense beyond a reasonable doubt.
The jury found Black guilty. It then assessed a life sentence, a punishment that leaves him eligible for parole only after 30 years. The verdict converted the allegations contained in the arrest paperwork into an adjudicated finding of guilt. That legal distinction is important: police had accused Black after the 2025 investigation, but prosecutors still had to prove their case in court. The witnesses who helped officers identify a suspect on the morning of the attack became part of a broader evidentiary picture that also included what police saw after the pursuit, what was recovered at the scene and what prosecutors said the physical evidence showed about the force used against Watkins.
The witnesses’ role also meant the public record contained unusually immediate descriptions of police arriving while a suspected attacker was still nearby. One witness reported seeing the man with a rock as officers approached. Police said Black fled when an officer tried to contact him. Those observations were relevant to the investigation, but the prosecution still had to put them in context for jurors. A person’s presence near a crime scene, even combined with flight, does not by itself answer every element of a murder charge. The state’s case therefore focused on how the eyewitness accounts overlapped with the physical evidence and the officer’s observations. Jurors ultimately concluded that combination proved Black’s guilt.
Outside court, Watkins’ relatives sought to prevent the details of the killing from becoming the only public account of her life. Her daughter, Briana Watkins, wrote after her death that her mother had faced hardships, personal struggles and health issues but remained someone who made other people feel valued. Her mother, Dorothy Grimes, remembered her as protective of others and willing to confront bullying. Relatives said Watkins had been living on the street around the time of the attack. Their statements added context to a victim who otherwise might have been described in public records mainly by her age, her living circumstances and the location where she was found.
The family also said it was still looking for an explanation. Early reporting noted hopes that surveillance footage from businesses around the area might provide more information about what happened before witnesses saw the assault. Publicly available accounts of the trial do not establish that a motive was ever identified. No verified evidence reviewed for this report establishes that Watkins and Black had a prior relationship, a dispute or a planned meeting. The absence of a known motive does not undo the verdict, because motive is not the same question as whether prosecutors proved the elements of murder. But for relatives trying to understand why Watkins was killed, it remains a separate and deeply personal gap in the record.
Watkins’ family also disclosed that she was a registered organ donor and that her wishes were honored after her death. Her daughter organized a fundraiser to help pay for cremation, an urn, a small plot and headstone, and expenses connected with bringing her mother’s remains back to family. The appeal described Watkins as “strong, compassionate, and resilient,” language that stood in sharp contrast to the clinical descriptions in police paperwork and the difficult evidence later presented in court. By making those details public, the family placed Watkins’ identity back at the center of a case that otherwise could have been defined almost entirely by the actions of the man convicted of killing her.
The criminal case is now defined by a guilty verdict and a life sentence rather than by the suspicion recorded in the first arrest affidavit. Black faces decades in prison before he can be considered for parole. The public evidence explains in considerable detail how witnesses alerted police, how an officer encountered Black and how prosecutors later presented the physical evidence to jurors. It still does not explain what set the encounter in motion. In that sense, the investigation answered the question required for a prosecution while leaving the question Watkins’ family raised from the beginning unresolved.
Author note: Last updated October 17, 2026.