On March 4, a Travis County judge handed down a stack of multi-decade prison sentences in the 2024 SXSW hit-and-run that killed two people in downtown Austin. The case stems from a March 12, 2024 collision at East Seventh and Red River streets that left one man dead on the pavement and another critically injured. For a festival that already lives with a reputation for late-night chaos, the outcome marks a rare, clear-cut criminal resolution to one of its most shocking recent nights.
According to reporting on the case, prosecutors secured convictions against Tyrone Thompson on two counts of murder and two counts of collision involving death. The judge imposed 40-year prison terms on each murder count and 10-year terms for each collision count, all to be served concurrently. As reported by KVUE, the practical effect is a maximum of four decades behind bars.
Local coverage states the crash happened shortly after 1 a.m. on March 12, 2024, when a vehicle struck two pedestrians crossing in the Entertainment District at East Seventh and Red River. Twenty-six-year-old chef Cody Jordon Shelton died at the scene, while 34-year-old William Dunham was critically injured and later succumbed to his injuries. Downtown patrons and restaurant staff were left reeling in the immediate aftermath; see reporting by FOX 7 Austin for contemporaneous accounts…