Johnny Leon Pleads Guilty In Theodore Shaughnessy Case: Travis DA

Austin TX

14 April, 2021

12:03 PM

Description

AUSTIN, TX — A third man involved in the 2018 death of an Austin jewelry owner has pleaded guilty to criminal solicitation of capital murder and faces 35 years in prison, authorities said. Johnny Roman Leon III, 24, pleaded guilty to murder in the death of Theodore Shaughnessy as part of a plea agreement Wednesday, the Travis County District Attorney's Office announced. Leon will not be eligible for parole for almost 20 years, until he is 44, authorities said. The announcement comes more than a week after Nicolas Shaughnessy, 22, and Arieon Smith pleaded guilty to murder in the case. The younger Shaughnessy was originally charged with capital murder in a murder-for-hire plot against his father, Theodore Shaughnessy, 55, in 2018. The elder man owned Gallerie Jewelers in Austin. Read that story: Austin Man And Shooter He Hired To Kill His Father Plead Guilty Both Smith and Shaughnessy were also sentenced to 35 years in prison. They will not be eligible for parole for almost 20 years, when Smith is 40 and Shaughnessy is 41, the district attorney's office said. Jaclyn Edison, 21, who was previously married to Nicolas Shaughnessy, was charged with solicitation to commit capital murder. She bonded out of jail shortly after her arrest in 2018. Her next court hearing is set for June, but she is not expected to appear. Corey Shaughnessy, the wife of Theodore Shaughnessy, conveyed her despair and grief Wednesday during the virtual hearing immediately after Leon pleaded guilty. "Not me, my husband, anyone in our family or any of our friends could have ever imagined that Nicholas and Jackie would want to have us murdered," she said through a statement that a court employee read aloud in Wednesday's virtual hearing. Corey Shaughnessy survived the March 2, 2018, attack as Smith and Leon, armed with guns, entered their southwestern Travis County house in the middle of the night, investigators have said. Ted was shot dead in a hallway as he went to confront the intruder. Corey, who was armed, returned fire until she ran out of ammunition and crawled into a closet to call 911, according to the Austin American-Statesman. Police later found the bullet-ridden body of Theodore Shaughnessy in a house on the 9000 block of Oliver Drive after receiving a report of an intruder at the house and multiple shots being fired, police said, Patch reported in 2018. "They (Nicolas and Jaclyn) planned their future of profiting from the business that Ted and I had built for over 20 years. They took everything that I had to give, after failing to take my life," she said. Nicolas was the sole beneficiary of $2 million in the event of his parents' death, according to a search warrant. Nicolas, then 19 and living in College Station, was having financial troubles and owed his mother $30,000, according to court documents.