Ex-Mart employee convicted of murder in Fort Worth, shooting fugitive task force during standoff

WACO, Texas (KWTX) – A former Mart man serving a 60-year sentence for a Limestone County murder pleaded guilty Thursday to murder in Tarrant County and the shooting of fugitive task force members during a standoff in Waco in 2022.

In a remote hearing involving judges and prosecutors from McLennan and Tarrant counties, Kevin Duane Kirven, 38, was sentenced to two concurrent 60-year prison terms in a Tarrant County murder and shootout involving federal, state and local officers.

Kirven, who authorities say is a gang member, was initially belligerent and uncooperative when visiting judge Roy Sparkman began asking the usual questions associated with plea hearings.

Kirven even refused to confirm his name, telling the judge that he had already signed the plea papers and he just wanted to “get out of here.”

“Call me indifferent, incoherent, whatever. I don’t want to do it and I shouldn’t do it. I don’t answer anything. You are my public defender. Go defend yourself,” Kirven told his attorney, Phil Martinez, as he appeared a short distance from the McLennan County Jail.

Kirven calmed down and became cooperative after Sparkman and Martinez explained that the sooner he answered the questions, the sooner he could finish the hearing.

Sparkman asked if Kirven was a U.S. citizen and explained the possible consequences of a felony conviction. Kirven interrupted and said, “I wish you would deport me. Take me somewhere, but here.”

Kirven was charged with seven counts of aggravated assault on a public servant for shooting at officers who came to arrest him on a Limestone County warrant related to the January 2022 shooting death of Willie Rhodes. Rhodes, 55, of Marth, was a Waco convenience store clerk whose body was found in a pond near Mexia off Route 462 in Limestone County.

In September, Kirven pleaded guilty in the Groesbeck case to murder and tampering with evidence – a human corpse – and was sentenced to 60 years in prison.

Rhodes was reported to be in “imminent danger” when he was reported missing from work at a Cefco store in the 1600 block of South 18th Street in Waco.

Kirven was implicated in the crime when he was seen driving Rhodes’ car in Coolidge that day. A tire came off the car and he was forced to pull into the Hilltop Apartments in Coolidge. Limestone County deputies, while checking the suspect vehicle, found blood on the bumper and saw Kirven try to tow the vehicle away.

Kirven ran from the apartment complex and was not immediately found.

Rhodes’ body was found in a pond near the Mexia landfill four days after he was reported missing. Officers found his body wrapped in a tarp and reported a failed attempt to keep him from floating to the surface with the weight of two cinder blocks.

Warrants were issued for Kirven and he was involved in a shootout with members of the US Marshals Service’s Lone Star Fugitive Task Force on March 29, 2022, at a residence in McLennan County. After a 90-minute standoff, he was taken into custody.

Kirven admitted after his arrest that he would have killed the task force members that day if he had had a “clear shot,” according to arrest records.

Kirven testified for the defense in the murder trial of his cousin Zamar Kirven, a former Mart football star who shot and killed two of his best friends in April 2021.

Kevin Kirven testified at his cousin’s trial in Waco’s 54th District Court in June 2023 that he killed 20-year-old Jacob Ybarra and 23-year-old Sabion Kubica at a home in Marta, not his cousin.

Zamar Kirven is serving a life sentence without parole in the case.

Kevin Kirven must serve at least 30 years in prison before he can apply for parole.

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