A San Antonio man whose attempted purse snatching two years ago led to the bizarre death of an Air Force member came a step closer to a possible death sentence Thursday.

Jurors took about 2½ hours to find Lorenzo Leroy Thompson, 23, guilty of capital murder.

The parents of victim Vanessa Marie Pitts, 25, wept together and embraced as the decision was read aloud by state District Judge Melisa Skinner.

“It's hard to go on without her. What do you do? How do you make up for that?” Charles Pitts testified of his only child as the punishment phase followed. “I don't have any (family) anymore. It's just me and my wife.”

Closing arguments for the punishment portion of the trial are set for Friday morning. Jurors now have only two choices — life in prison without parole or execution.

Thompson was arrested in April 2010, days after Pitts died of multiple blunt force injuries on a U.S. 90 access road.

Multiple witnesses, and eventually Thompson himself, said he snatched Pitts' purse a West Side convenience store and she ran after him, jumping on his stolen pickup in an effort to get the purse back.

The defendant then sped away, swerving in an effort to throw her off, and when that didn't work, aimed his truck at another vehicle in an effort to “scrape” her off, prosecutors David Lunan and Tim Molina said during closing arguments.

“She wasn't going to be victimized. But he ... made her a victim anyway,” Lunan told jurors.

The crux of the defense was whether Thompson intended to kill Pitts. Without the intent, he instead could have been found guilty of felony murder, punishable by five years to life in prison, with the possibility of parole.

Thompson showed a lack of intent that day by avoiding other cars before hitting the truck that resulted in Pitts flying off his vehicle, attorney Joseph Esparza said.

Attorneys blamed the death on two things they said were out of their client's control — Pitts taking the initiative to jump on Thompson's truck and the motorist he hit stopping in the middle of the road.

“Nothing happens to hurt her in any way until (the other motorist) stops her vehicle in the roadway completely,” Esparza said. “You don't have the evidence that he wanted her to die.”

But prosecutors pointed to witness testimony that no one was in Thompson's lane of traffic or the lane next to him. He seemed to swerve intentionally into the other vehicle, they contended.

“Actions speak louder than words. He's going back and forth, abrupt turns, and she's swinging off the side of this car,” Lunan said.

Pitts' parents described her as a shy person who had recently come out of her shell after completing Air Force basic training. She had worked two jobs while attending college and was thinking about getting engaged, they said.

“Today is a most happy day for her because justice has been served,” Maria Elys Pitts, her mother, testified as her voice quavered. “Thank you God and you (jurors).”

To order the death penalty, jurors would have to find that Thompson is a future danger to society and, if he is, that there aren't mitigating circumstances to avoid such a punishment.

“A severe life of no safety or security led to a life of despair for Lorenzo Thompson,” defense attorney Michael Gross told jurors during the punishment phase, describing his client's upbringing in Louisiana as “shocking” due to domestic violence and poverty.

Thompson's stepfather would beat him and once pawned his Christmas gift, a new bicycle, to pay neighborhood men he owed money to, his brother said. Their biological father, who he came to San Antonio to live with, is a crack addict, he said. He began thieving at age 12 to provide electricity and water for their home, said his mother, Juanita Johnson.


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