A Tarrant County jury has sentenced 23-year-old Sundall Barnes to life in prison for the murder of 20-year-old Zoin Hodges, who was shot and killed outside the Shady Grove car wash in Arlington in the early morning hours of August 30, 2024. Investigators say a discarded cigar found near Hodges’ body ultimately helped tie Barnes to the killing, closing a case that started with community tips about a suspect known only by a street alias.
According to the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office, DNA evidence linked Barnes to a brown cigar located near Hodges’ body at the scene, providing prosecutors with physical evidence tying him directly to the shooting outside the car wash. Assistant District Attorneys Stephanie Simpson and Katherine Messina prosecuted the case, with investigator Lee Blagsdell and victim coordinator Laura Medina also part of the team, per the same Facebook post from the district attorney’s office.
Officers responding to reports around 1:20 a.m. that night found Hodges deceased in the 2500 block of Brown Boulevard, according to a WFAA-TV report on an Arlington Police Department release. Several shell casings were also recovered near his body, evidence that would later prove critical to identifying his killer.
Tips Led Police to a Street Alias
During the initial investigation, Arlington homicide detectives received multiple community tips pointing to a suspect known by the alias “Maxxo,” whom police later identified as Barnes, according to the City of Arlington. That identification came together with a separate thread of evidence: surveillance footage from an August 13, 2024 vehicle burglary had captured Barnes stealing a firearm, which led APD North District Geographic detectives to obtain active arrest warrants for theft of a firearm and burglary of a motor vehicle weeks before the murder arrest…