A Bexar County jury found Shandrick Buckley, 39, guilty of murder. He killed his own cellmate inside the county jail. Jurors took just four hours to decide. A judge then gave Buckley a life sentence. He will never get out. He will die in prison.
The killing happened on May 30, 2019. Buckley shared a cell with Alexander Wise, 29. They were locked up inside the Bexar County Adult Detention Center. Jail staff had put both men under extra watch that day. Records show each man got into a fight earlier that same day. Staff still put them in one cell together that night.
Deputies were making their rounds. They saw blood coming out from under the cell door. They opened it up fast. Wise lay on the floor. He was not moving. He had bad cuts and bruises on his head and face. Buckley was on his bunk. He looked like he was asleep.
Wise died from the beating. Sheriff Javier Salazar said Wise once belonged to a white prison gang. It is called the Aryan Brotherhood.
Buckley's lawyers brought up that fact at trial. They said the jail made a bad call. They said staff put a Black man in a cell with a former member of that white gang. They said bad blood between the two men may have started the fight. The state did not deny Wise had gang ties. The jury still found Buckley guilty.
This was not Buckley's first kill. Cops arrested him back in September 2017. They said he stomped a man to death near the Haven for Hope shelter. That spot sits close to the train tracks downtown. The victim was Jose Gustavo Hernandez, 55. Buckley was still sitting in jail on that murder charge. He had not even gone to trial yet. Then he killed Wise two years later, right inside the jail.
The case took years to reach a jury. Doctors first said Buckley could not stand trial. That means his mind was too sick for him to understand the charges. It also meant he could not help his own lawyers in court. A court said his mind had gotten better in 2024. That cleared the way for the state to finally try him.
The Bexar County District Attorney's Office confirmed the guilty verdict and the life sentence. Prosecutors say Texas law treats this kind of case as capital murder. That is because Buckley was already locked up on the Hernandez killing when he killed again behind bars. Capital murder can bring the death penalty or life with no parole. In Buckley's case, the punishment was life. No parole. Not ever.
Buckley now leaves the county jail for good. He heads to a Texas prison. He will spend what is left of his life behind those walls.
The extra watch that put Buckley and Wise in one cell has a long name. Jail staff call it Emergency Management Intensive Supervision. In plain words, it just means extra eyes on inmates who might be at risk. It is meant to keep people safer, not put them in more danger. In this case, it did not work.
Jail killings often stay hidden from the public. This one did not. The case sat open for seven long years before it reached a jury. Wise's family waited that whole time for answers. So did the people of Bexar County.
Buckley's competency fight also slowed things down for years. Courts must be sure a defendant understands the charges against him. They must be sure he can help his own defense. Doctors watched Buckley for years before they said his mind was fit for trial. Only then could the case move forward.
The verdict closes one chapter. Buckley will not walk out of prison again. He is already serving time for one killing. Now he carries a second life sentence for another. Both men, Hernandez and Wise, died at his hands, less than two years apart, in two different places in San Antonio.
