Not Guilty: Naked man who beat Fort Worth delivery driver to death with firewood declared legally insane

FORT WORTH, Texas - The man accused of beating a Fort Worth delivery driver to death with a piece of firewood has been found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Fort Worth Firewood Murder

What's new:

A Tarrant County judge found Christantus Omondi not guilty after accepting an evaluation report that declared him legally insane at the time of the crime.

Attorneys on both sides reportedly agreed to the acquittal.

Omondi is expected to be transferred to a state hospital.

The backstory:

In January 2024, Omondi was arrested and charged with murder for brutally attacking 51-year-old Scotty Jackson as he was delivering firewood to a home in Fort Worth.

According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Jackson was in the process of unloading the wood with the homeowner when a naked man, later identified as Omondi, approached them. 

"This naked man is three inches from my face, holding a key up to me yelling at me that I was on his property. He never wants to see me again. I should leave," the homeowner recalled. "Scott then replied, ‘No, this is his property and his house. Just let us unload firewood because it’s cold outside.’" 

The homeowner told police that’s when Omondi pushed him and struck Jackson with a piece of wood repeatedly. 

Omondi chased the homeowner back inside his house, then he returned to Jackson and beat him to death with the firewood.

In the police document, officers noted that other witnesses confirmed the homeowner's account, as did video surveillance.

After the crime, Omondi returned to the Airbnb on the same street where he’d been living. He allegedly tried to assault another female tenant in the Airbnb before police arrived, according to the affidavit.

Omondi, who was still naked, was "non-compliant and aggressive," as police detained him, the affidavit states.

Dig deeper:

Attorney Russell Wilson, who is not involved in the case, explains that the not guilty verdict does not mean Omondi is getting away with murder.

"It's not the violence and the erraticism of the act, because certainly, we've seen murders occur by people that were not insane," Wilson said. "It really turns on understanding the difference between the right and wrong."

"I feel like it's not fair"

What they're saying:

"I catch myself crying every single time, just because I was a daddy's girl."

FOX 4's Vania Castillo spoke with Kasey DeLeon, the victim's daughter, about her frustration with the verdict.

"I'm angry. I feel like it's not fair, like at the end of the day, whether he was sane or not, his hands still have blood on them," DeLeon said.

Omondi could still spend years, if not a lifetime, in a mental health facility.

"I've heard that the mental hospital is a lot worse than jail, and so that kind of brings me some comfort, but then I hear he has the potential to have outpatient and that kind of scares me," DeLeon said. "What if he gets out, and he's not saying and does it again, and then that's someone else's loved one no longer here?"

Fort WorthCrime and Public Safety