Fort Worth woman who fatally shot 14-year-old to protect her children won’t face charges

A Tarrant County grand jury has declined to charge the woman who fatally shot a 14-year-old boy outside her south Fort Worth duplex in December.

Court records show the grand jury no-billed Aleah Wallace, indicating they didn’t believe there was sufficient evidence to charge her with a crime.

Wallace has said she fired in self-defense and to protect her children when the teen tried to break into their home.

“I feel great that they were able to see it through my eyes,” Wallace told KDFW-TV in response to the grand jury decision.

Officers were dispatched to the Peppertree Acres Apartments in the 5200 block of Southcrest Court early on the morning of Dec. 14 after Wallace reported a prowler. When officers arrived, she told them the person had left the area, Fort Worth police have said.

Wallace called again shortly before 3 a.m. to report the person had come back and was attempting to break into her home. When they returned to the scene, officers found the teenager on the ground in the front yard with multiple gunshot wounds, according to police and the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Family members identified the 14-year-old who was killed as Devin Baker, an eighth-grade student at Rosemont Middle School. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

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Aleah Wallace told KDFW-TV in an exclusive interview at the time of the shooting that she was “devastated” to learn the teen’s age. She got a gun to protect herself and her four young daughters after some recent break-ins.

No one was home when those earlier burglaries took place, but Wallace, 25, was alone in the house with her daughters on Dec. 14 when somebody tried to get in again, KDFW reported. She called 911, but the prowler was gone when officers first arrived, police said.

A short time later, Wallace was sweeping her living room floor when she heard a window being opened, she said.

“I stood in the hallway, and I could see him standing at the window, lifting it up,” Wallace told KDFW. “I just shot.”

After the shooting, the managers at Wallace’s federally subsidized apartment complex told her guns were not allowed and gave her 30 days to leave, according to a GoFundMe account Wallace set up when her family was facing eviction. The eviction case against Wallace was eventually dropped after an attorney stepped in to defend her, KDFW reported.

Wallace told KDFW that she and her four daughters are going to counseling and it’s been “a little tough” for the girls, but they’re doing OK. The family has been able to move to another location.

“I want to offer my condolences to (Devin’s) family and thank everyone who helped me and my girls,” Wallace said to KDFW.

Durwyn Lamb, a youth mentor, told the Star-Telegram he met with Devin and a group of other students at their school about two weeks before the shooting.

“Tragic,” Lamb said. “You know, young man 14 years old, and I seen something in him. I seen myself in him actually, and I just thought, man, he had something good about him that I could tell, it’s just misguided. And it’s just sad he lost his life that way.”