Police: Drug deal gone wrong led to fatal shooting of innocent bystander in Burleson

Sixty-four-year-old Kathryn Bitner Bryan had just gotten off her shift at Sachem, a chemical science company in Cleburne, when she was driving home Friday evening. She had just left a Burleson grocery store and was heading back to her husband in Arlington when she was fatally struck in the head by stray gunfire that was being exchanged among six men involved in a drug deal gone wrong.

“It’s a terrible tragedy. It’s a terrible tragedy for our community,” Burleson Chief of Police Billy Cordell said, adding that Bryan was an innocent bystander who got “caught in the middle” of illegal activity that should have never occurred in Burleson to begin with.

“The (suspects) were not from Burleson, but they did come to Burleson to conduct their business,” Cordell said. “What is disheartening is the fact that an innocent woman was just traveling from work to get home, as she has done for the 43 years she had been a chemical engineer … and was killed as a result of that.”

The shooting

The shooting occurred around 6 p.m. Friday on Wilshire Boulevard, which Burleson police say is a heavily traveled highway. Moments prior to shots being fired, six men engaged in an illegal narcotics transaction at a nearby Lowe’s parking lot.

Police said that Gustavo Hernandez, 28, and Francisco Adrian Mejia, 24, both of Mission, were meeting with a group of four North Texas men: David Devaney Sr., 58, of Joshua, and his son David Davaney Jr., 35, of Fort Worth; Clint Dunlap, 40, of Lake Worth; and David Dever, 36, of Granbury.

Police said their investigation found that Hernandez and Mejia “had a plan to rip off the drugs from the four others by using counterfeit money to pay for the illegal narcotics, while the four others had a preconceived plan to rob Hernandez and Mejia of the money.”

“Both sides of this transaction had preconceived plans to rip off the other,” Cordell said in a news conference Tuesday morning. “When the encounter turned bad, the white Malibu occupied by Hernandez and Mejia fled, resulting in a chase that traveled west on Alsbury (Street), turning south onto the entrance ramp of I-35, then exiting on Wilshire Boulevard.”

The vehicle Hernandez and Mejia were in “topped a hill” and ran into the congested road, Cordell said. The Devaneys were in their own vehicle as the two other North Texas men were in separate trucks and tried to “pin the white Malibu in when Hernandez and Mejia were stopped in traffic,” which resulted in gunfire being exchanged.

Hernandez, with Mejia as a passenger in the vehicle, drove the car into the median and did a U-turn, driving south on the northbound lanes of Wilshire while shots continued to be fired from the Devaneys, Dunlap and Dever, which is when police believe Bryan was killed.

“Hernandez and Mejia exited their vehicle and fled on foot due to their vehicle becoming disabled,” Cordell continued, adding that the pair jumped into the bed of an uninvolved truck that was stopped in traffic.

The two men from Mission were later dropped off near Alsbury and I-35, Cordell said. Mejia had suffered a gunshot wound to the leg, and was treated at a local hospital before he was taken into custody. Hernandez was arrested at the scene.

Both Hernandez and Mejia face charges of engaging in criminal activity — manufacturing or delivery of a controlled substance and forgery. Both men were being held Tuesday on $450,000 bond.

Using video footage, and further investigation work, police identified the Devaneys’ vehicle. Devaney Sr. was taken into custody Saturday morning after leaving a hotel room in Fort Worth. His son was found later Saturday and engaged in a “short pursuit” in his vehicle, before fleeing on foot and being arrested by officers, police said.

Dever and Dunlap were arrested Saturday evening.

The four men North Texas men face charges of capital murder, two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and engaging in criminal activity — aggravated robbery. The Devaneys, Dever and Dunlap were each being held Tuesday on $2.75 million bond.

“During the course of committing the felony offense during the drug transaction, there was a preconceived plan to rob the other two, put all that together and in the cross-fire, an innocent bystander was killed, that puts us at a level to put that capital murder (charge),” Cordell said, explaining it’s uncertain who fired the fatal shot, but all four men will be charged in the homicide.

Further investigation

The six arrests aren’t the end of the police department’s investigation, Cordell said.

“All of Friday through Sunday morning, detectives wrote 10 arrest warrants, two seizure warrants, one cell phone warrant and three vehicle search warrants,” Cordell added. “We believe … in these cases, and the complexity and multi-layers of this, we have gotten the people (involved in this incident) in custody and gotten them off the streets for the safety of our citizens, but we have got an enormous amount of work to continue.”

Cordell said that the police department is working on serving nearly 30 more warrants to investigate additional cell phones and “other media.”

The police department had seized about four pounds of meth from “different individuals that were involved in this case,” alongside 10 firearms “from murder investigations that were involved in the scene.”

The victim

Bryan was a wife, mother to two sons and grandmother to two children, the police department said in an email.

She was going to become a grandmother to a third grandchild.

“She was a humble light of love in the world. All of her cherished family could tell you about a favorite meal she cooked for them,” the police department said. “Be it through the family banana cake or a rib roast Christmas feast, her cooking emanated her care for the people she loved. The world deserved a bakery from her.”

The 64-year-old is survived by her children, grandchildren, husband, father and three siblings.