Yacob Hickman (Comal County Sheriff’s Office).
A 27-year-old man in Texas will spend the remainder of his days behind bars for killing his own father, shooting the 51-year-old man six times in the head and neck and then telling the 911 operator that doing it felt “great.”
Caldwell County District Judge Bruce Boyer on Friday ordered Yacob Hickman to serve a sentence of life in a state correctional facility for the 2022 slaying of Paul Stautzenberger, authorities announced.
According to a news release from the Comal County Criminal District Attorney’s Office, deputies with the county sheriff’s office at about 12:08 a.m. on June 29, 2022, responded to a call about a shooting at Hickman’s home in the 300 block of Campbell Drive in Canyon Lake, Texas, which is about 60 miles southwest of Austin.
Authorities said Hickman himself placed the 911 call and immediately confessed “that he had just killed his father,” telling the emergency dispatcher he had “emptied six rounds” into the victim. Hickman remained on the line conversing with the dispatcher for more than 20 minutes and acknowledged that he needed to “control his anger” and that he was “fully aware of the consequences of his actions.”
“I can’t say that I’m sorry,” Hickman said during the call. “To be honest with you, I feel so f—ing great.”
Upon arriving at the scene, first responders said they quickly located Stautzenberger’s body inside the home. He had suffered “six gunshot wounds to the neck and head.”
“Further investigation revealed that the 51-year-old victim was shot while seated on his couch eating a salad,” prosecutors said.
During the trial, authorities established that Hickman had moved to Canyon Lake from Louisiana only one week prior because his father had encouraged him and believed there were better employment opportunities in the area.
In addition to playing a recording of the 911 call, jurors also heard recordings of calls Hickman made from a recorded line from jail.
“During the jail calls, Hickman stated that he and the victim were having a simple conversation but said the victim ‘kept on wanting to run his f—ing mouth,’” the release states. “Hickman also stated on a call to his mother, ‘The most important thing is that if I ever did get out of here is what guarantees me from ever getting stuck in positions that would cause me to come back?’”
Prior to being formally sentenced, several of Hickman’s family members read victim impact statements in which they universally expressed that Hickman “killed the one person who truly wanted him to succeed,” prosecutors said.
“Our office is grateful to the jury for their time, careful consideration, and for providing the victim’s family with a sense of peace and justice in the wake of this senseless tragedy,” the DA’s office said in a statement. “This sentence was not only justified but necessary to protect the community, based on Hickman’s own statements in his jail calls.”
