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

In a remote hearing involving judges and prosecutors in McLennan and Tarrant counties, Kevin Dwayne Kirven, 38, was sentenced to two concurrent terms of 60 years in prison in the Tarrant County killing and exchanging fire with federal, state and local officers.

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

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

“Call me insensitive, incoherent, whatever. I don’t want to and I don’t have to. I don’t answer anything. You my public defender. Go to the defense,” Kirven, appearing remotely from the McLennan County Jail, told his attorney, Phil Martinez.

Kirven sat down and became more cooperative after Sparkman and Martinez explained that the sooner he answered questions, the sooner he could wrap up the hearing.

Sparkman asked if Kirven was a U.S. citizen and explained the possible ramifications of a felony conviction. Kirven cut her off and said: “I would like you to deport me. Take me somewhere, but here.”

Kirven was charged with seven counts of aggravated assault on a public servant for firing at officers who had come to arrest him on the Limestone County warrant involving the January 2022 shooting death of Willie Rhodes. Rhodes, 55 years ago, from Mart, was a Waco store clerk whose body was found in a pond near Mexia, off Limestone County Road 462.

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

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

Kirven was linked to the murder when he was seen driving Rhodes’ car in Coolidge later that day. The tire came off the car and he was forced to pull into the Hilltop Apartments in Coolidge. Limestone County officials who checked 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 located.

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 what appeared to be an unsuccessful attempt to keep it from floating to the surface with the weight of two cinder blocks, officials said.

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

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

Kirven testified for the defense in the capital 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 54th State District Court in Waco in June 2023 that he was the one who killed Jacob Ybarra, 20, and Sabion Kubitza, 23, at their home in Mart , not his cousin.

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

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

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