Inset: Steven Black (Tarrant County Jail). Background: The pedestrian-friendly area where Black killed a woman with a rock in Fort Worth, Texas (Google Maps).
A Texas man will spend the rest of his life behind bars for the particularly graphic and brutal killing of a woman last summer.
On Friday, Steven Black, 48, was convicted by a jury of his peers in Tarrant County on one count of murder for the death of 50-year-old Susan Watkins in July 2025.
In quick fashion, the defendant was subsequently sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years, the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office announced in a press release.
"He stomped on her head with his feet, threw large rocks at her head, and left her body behind a dumpster," the press release reads.
The underlying incident occurred on July 9, 2025, near the 900 block of South Jennings Avenue — in the heart of the Near Southside neighborhood and due south of downtown Fort Worth.
The victim's loved ones believe the two had never met before that day, according to a report by Fort Worth-based NBC affiliate KXAS.
The attack occurred on a Wednesday. Watkins, who was living on the street then after having fallen on hard times, succumbed to her injuries in a nearby hospital the next weekend.
"Despite her situation, she was still the light of my life; she was still someone who made me laugh," the victim's daughter told the TV station. "She was still someone I loved dearly. She just cared about others more than that I've ever seen anybody ever care about someone else, ever."
During the attack, Black threw Watkins onto the pavement and repeatedly stomped on her head and body with his foot, police said, according to a report by Dallas-based Fox affiliate KDFW.
Witnesses at the scene identified the assailant and described the brutal violence, according to law enforcement. The rock used to further attack Watkins was found near the crime scene.
Black, for his part, was still in the same general area as the victim when he was arrested — an area with relatively large amounts of foot traffic. The defendant was covered in blood and trying to run away.
No motive was offered for the crime.
At trial, prosecutors described the ferocity of the violence and said the killer acted without remorse or restraint.
One prosecutor described how the piece of asphalt was raised over and over, then brought down over and over into the victim's face as her legs twitched, according to a courtroom report by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. At one point, Black grabbed the dumpster for balance in order to stomp on Watkins' head, the state told the jury.
When police found the victim, a visible piece of rock was still on her head, the Star-Telegram reported at the time.
Ultimately, Black killed Watkins "by bashing her brains in with his foot and with this hunk of asphalt," prosecutor Grayson Ezzell said in the state's closing argument, lifting the asphalt to show the court.
The defendant did not testify in his own defense.
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