Man sentenced to 60 years for TCU student's West 7th Street murder

An accused killer has pleaded guilty to a murder charge in Fort Worth. The victim was a Texas Christian University student whose death stunned the campus.

Guilty Plea

What we know:

On Thursday, Matthew Purdy pleaded guilty to murder for the death of 21-year-old Wes Smith in 2023. He was then sentenced to 60 years in prison for the murder.

Purdy also received 20 years for pistol-whipping another TCU student right after Smith's murder. He received additional time for a total of eight felony charges, including robbery, harassment of a public servant, tampering with physical evidence, and credit card abuse.

Although his sentences add up to 206 years, they will run concurrently or at the same time that he is serving his 60-year murder sentence.

What they're saying:

"We fell like it gives the family some peace to put this part behind them, and to hopefully start to grieve. We think it also assures the safety of our community way from him," said Assistant Tarrant County District Attorney Ashlea Deener. "He's a very dangerous person, very unpredictable. So we are satisfied with the plea."

TCU Student Murdered

Matthew Purdy

The backstory:

Wes Smith was fatally shot outside a bar in Fort Worth’s West 7th Street District on Sept. 1, 2023.

According to Fort Worth police, he was seemingly gunned down at random. 

Purdy, who was 21 at the time, approached Smith, said a few words, and shot him three times – once in the stomach, once in the shoulder, and once in the back of the head after Smith was already down.

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Police said during a confession, Purdy told detectives he shot Smith that third time to "make sure he was dead."

After the shooting, Purdy hit another person with his gun before he was arrested.

He told police he would have shot more people if he hadn't run out of ammunition.

Who Was Wes Smith?

Wes Smith (Source: St. George's Independent School)

What we know:

Smith was just starting his junior year at TCU.

According to his family, he was working towards a double major in finance and strategic marketing. He also had an internship lined up at an investment banking firm in Dallas.

What they're saying:

Some of Smith’s family members traveled from Tennessee for the hearing. They provided impact statements after Purdy entered his guilty plea.

Phillip Smith said his son had stepped outside of one of the bars that night to call a ride for a group of girls so they could get back to campus safely.

"You then randomly selected him from all those students that were out there, just simply walked up to him and shot him," he said. 

The victim's father said thousands of TCU students gathered on campus to mourn his son.

"Your actions caused catastrophic, monumental mourning by thousands of people. If your action alone caused sadness and sickness, caused people to lose sleep, loss of appetite, mental disarray, caused people to be confused, caused people not to be able to focus, massive frustration, caused injury to businesses because people couldn't work. It caused injury the personal relationships and your action caused fear among people. It caused anxiety, it caused depression, caused anger. It calls people to question their faith. And in some distances, your crime totally ripped all emotion out of people, just made them hollow individuals. So you physically murdered and executed Wes, but you emotionally and psychologically murdered thousands of other people, including probably everyone in this courtroom," he said.

Doree Smith said her son had a heart to help. He was the type of person who would have offered to help Purdy, whether it was to offer food, money, or even a ride.

"If you had just spoken to him, just spoken, if you had reached out instead of lashing out, I promise you, anybody, Wes would have met you with compassion, he would have listened, he would've treated you like you mattered," the victim's mother said. "You didn't know Wes. You never met him. But in that moment, you made a devastating, evil choice. You decided you mattered more than he did. And you took Wes's earthly life. And now Wes's loss is not just a personal loss but a communal wound."

West 7th Street Changes

Dig deeper:

Smith's death sparked widespread reaction across the TCU campus, the city of Fort Worth and in his hometown near Memphis, Tennessee.

The murder, along with numerous other acts of violence in Fort Worth's popular West 7th Street Entertainment District, prompted changes to municipal laws and overall tighter security measures.

The Source: The information in this story comes from Tarrant County court records and past news coverage.

Fort WorthCrime and Public Safety