They Killed His Brother, So He Dated The Killer’s Ex and Murdered Her In Front Of Her Kids D

On the morning of October 4th, 2024, police officers rolled into the Teague Wood Apartments in Seabrook, Texas after reports described a man flashing a gun around children inside one of the units. When they stepped through the doorway, they expected another heated domestic dispute.

Yet, what waited inside pushed the case somewhere far stranger than anybody realized at first. 23-year-old Mary Jane Collins was lying dead on the floor while her young sons remained inside the apartment. Though the man detectives wanted to question had already disappeared. As investigators started pulling records, surveillance footage, phone activity, and a FaceTime video, they discovered a prison inmate watching part of the situation unfold in real time, which eventually led them to what a murder committed 4 years earlier in Texas City. That was the morning everything came together, although the story itself started long before anybody reached Seabrook. The deeper investigators dug into Dwayne and Hurst’s background, the more often another name appeared alongside his own, which gradually shifted attention away from Seabrook toward a different city sitting farther down the Gulf Coast. That name belonged to Deajuan Triplett, a Hitchcock native who had spent years serving as a major influence in Hurst’s life long before either man entered public headlines. Family members described the two as closely connected despite their age difference, with Hurst looking up to

Triplett as both an older brother and a guiding presence throughout his younger years. People who knew them around Galveston County often spoke about that bond whenever conversations turned toward family loyalty, which mattered later when investigators started reconstructing motives. The farther authorities moved backward through the timeline, the clearer it became that Mary Jane Collins had entered the story already unfolding years before she ever met Dwayne and Hurst.

To understand why detectives suddenly became interested in a homicide from 2020, it helps to understand the environment surrounding Texas City during that period. The area sat inside a region where personal disputes could move from arguments to gunfire within remarkably short periods, especially when pride, rumors, relationships, or missing property entered the conversation.

During the summer of 2020, several lives started intersecting around one conflict involving Deajwan Triplett, Michael King, Eddie Lee, plus an unnamed woman whose role remained clouded by conflicting accounts. Although each person entered that situation carrying separate grievances, those tensions gradually converged into a chain of events that nobody involved managed to stop.

What looked like a local dispute at first eventually became the foundation underneath everything investigators were now uncovering 4 years later. On July 31st, 2020, that conflict first surfaced publicly at a gas station in Texas City, where Triplett crossed paths with Michael King and Eddie Lee.

Witness accounts later indicated that firearms appeared during the confrontation, which immediately elevated the danger level without actually producing violence during that first encounter. Even though nobody pulled the trigger, the situation remained unresolved once the men went their separate ways, which left tension hanging in the air throughout the afternoon.

Rather than ending there, the dispute continued moving through Texas City as the same people drifted back toward one another again. That unresolved friction became important later, since investigators believed the first confrontation set the stage for everything that followed. As the day continued, Triplett eventually found himself involved in another argument with the same unnamed woman connected to the earlier encounter.

While that disagreement unfolded, Michael King and Eddie Lee appeared once again, bringing the earlier tension right back into the center of the situation. Whatever hopes existed for cooling things down disappeared quickly once both men arrived armed, turning a heated confrontation into something far more dangerous.

According to investigators, gunfire erupted shortly afterward, leaving Triplett wounded in the street while chaos spread through the area. What happened next transformed a local dispute a homicide case that would continue casting a shadow years later. Even after suffering gunshot wounds, Triplett managed to reach his vehicle and attempted to escape the scene before his injuries overwhelmed him.

As he drove away from the confrontation, control slipped away until his vehicle crashed nearby ending any chance of reaching safety or medical assistance on his own. Emergency responders transported him to a hospital, yet the injuries proved too severe resulting in his death later that day. For courts, prosecutors, investigators, plus most people following the case, the homicide eventually became a matter of arrest, charges, plea agreements, and then prison sentences.

For somebody else watching from much closer to the laws, however, the story never reached a proper ending, which is exactly where DeWailen Hurst quietly entered the picture. Long before detectives connected Hurst to Mary Jane Collins’ death, he had already spent years carrying the memory of what happened to DeWailen Triplett during that summer afternoon in Texas City.

While judges, attorneys, police officers, plus court records treated the shooting as a criminal case moving through the justice system, Hurst appeared to view it through an entirely different lens rooted in family loyalty and personal grievance. That difference would eventually matter far more than anybody realized in 2020 since the consequences of Triplett’s death did not stop after the funeral or the courtroom proceedings.

Instead, the aftermath kept moving through the lives of Michael King, Mary Jane Collins, two young children, and eventually DeWailen Hurst himself setting the stage for a revenge story that was only beginning to take shape. For people around Galveston County, DeWailen Ernest Hurst was known long before his name appeared in murder headlines.

Although most descriptions painted him as a young man constantly chasing the shadow of somebody older. That person was DeWailen Triplett, a Hitchcock native born on June 12th, 1989 whose presence carried weight inside the family long before violence entered the picture. While Triplett moved through adulthood navigating his own problems across Texas City and surrounding communities, Hurst spent years looking toward him for guidance, protection, plus the kind of respect younger brothers often seek from older relatives. Once Triplett was killed on July 31st, 2020, that relationship suddenly transformed from a living bond into something frozen in memory, which left Hurst carrying grief that people close to him later described as anger disguised as mourning. Although the homicide investigation moved forward through official channels, those closest to Triplett noticed that Hurst rarely spoke about healing, instead returning repeatedly to conversations about who pulled triggers, who escaped consequences, plus who still owed a debt. While Hurst struggled with that loss, Michael King found himself moving through a completely different reality

shaped by arrests, court appearances, and criminal charges. After Triplett died from gunshot wounds sustained in Texas City, investigators focused attention on King along with Eddie Lee, both of whom had confronted Triplett during the hours leading up to the shooting. King surrendered within days of the homicide, which immediately placed him at the center of a murder case that prosecutors believed was supported by witness accounts, surveillance footage, plus cell phone evidence.

Eddie Lee chose a different route, leaving Texas before authorities could fully close in, eventually surfacing in Louisiana while facing separate legal troubles of his own. Even though the investigation produced arrests, the case remained far from finished, which left multiple families waiting for answers while court proceedings crawled forward through one of the most chaotic periods in recent American history.

As the pandemic slowed, court systems across Texas months stretched into years while the Triplett case remained unresolved, creating an atmosphere where rumors started spreading faster than official information. Some people insisted the original dispute revolved around stolen firearms, while others claimed the confrontation centered on personal relationships involving the unnamed woman who appeared during both encounters that afternoon.

Conversations inside neighborhoods from Hitchcock to Texas City often turned into debates over whether Triplett had been targeted unfairly or whether Michael King believed he was settling an earlier dispute. Although prosecutors continued building their case, those arguments never really disappeared, which created two competing narratives growing side by side throughout Galveston County.

One group viewed King as a murderer who chased down a man already trying to leave trouble behind, while another insisted the entire situation began long before anybody arrived at that gas station. As those viewpoints hardened, families quietly picked sides, which made reconciliation nearly impossible long before a jury ever ended the conversation.

That waiting period finally started moving toward an ending in January 2023, when Michael King accepted a plea agreement rather than taking his chances at trial. By pleading guilty to murder, he received a 25-year prison sentence that guaranteed years behind bars, while still leaving open the possibility of parole in the future.

For prosecutors, the resolution represented accountability, while portions of Tripplett’s family publicly accepted the outcome as the legal conclusion of the case. Yet, legal closure rarely operates the same way as emotional closure, especially inside communities where people measure losses through personal pain rather than sentencing guidelines.

While judges signed paperwork and attorneys moved on to other cases, some relatives continued looking at the calendar differently, seeing 12 possible years before parole eligibility rather than 25 years announced in court. Among those still carrying resentment, nobody appeared more affected than DeWailoan Hurst.

Once King entered the Texas prison system, his life narrowed into routines controlled by correctional schedules, institutional rules, plus the consequences of decisions made years earlier. Although he remained connected to family members on the outside, the murder case itself appeared settled from his perspective, allowing him to focus on surviving prison life rather than ongoing conflict.

At the same time, Hurst’s past seemed to move in the opposite direction, with new allegations and criminal issues appearing throughout the following years. Records connected him to trespassing incidents, evading arrest accusations, family violence allegations, terroristic threats, plus other encounters that gradually darkened his reputation across the region.

Rather than distancing himself from conflict, he appeared to move deeper into it, which caused people around him to notice changes in both behavior and attitude. Friends who remembered the younger version of Hurst increasingly described somebody harder to reach, more volatile during disagreements, and far more consumed by events tied back to July 2020.

As those years passed, Triplet’s death remained a constant presence inside Hurst’s world, surfacing through conversations, online activity, plus discussions among relatives who never forgot what happened. People close to the family later described how the subject repeatedly returned whenever Michael King’s name entered the room, suggesting that prison had not removed him from Hurst’s thoughts nearly as much as the court system might have expected.

Rather than viewing King as a man already serving time, Hurst increasingly appeared focused on the life King left behind beyond prison walls. That distinction became important later, since revenge often shifts attention away from direct targets to a people connected to them. Somewhere between King’s sentencing in 2023 and the summer of 2024, that fixation seems to have evolved into something more deliberate, though few people around Hurst understood where it was heading.

Around the same period, another person was living a completely separate life without any indication that her future was becoming connected to events she never participated in. Mary Jane Collins was a young mother raising children while pursuing nursing ambitions, balancing work responsibilities with family obligations in the same way countless other people across Southeast Texas did every day.

Friends remembered somebody focused on stability, trying to create opportunities for her sons while navigating the pressures that come with parenthood at a young age. Unlike the men whose lives have been shaped by shootings, courtrooms, or criminal investigations, Collins had no role in the dispute that left De’Asian Triplett dead.

Her concerns centered around work schedules, child care responsibilities, future plans, plus the practical realities of supporting a household. Yet, hidden inside her personal history was a connection that would eventually place her directly in the path of D’Welyn Hurst. That connection was Michael King, who happened to be the father of her children, although nothing about that fact seemed significant to outsiders at first glance.

King was serving a prison sentence in Texas. Collins was trying to build a future for her family, while Hurst was still carrying anger connected to Triplett’s death. Viewed separately, those stories look unrelated, each moving along its own track without intersecting. Once examined together, however, the collision course becomes easier to see, especially after recognizing that Hurst’s attention was gradually shifting away from the man who killed his brother toward the people closest to him. 4 years after Diajuan Triplett died in Texas City, D’Welyn Hurst finally made a move, though the person he approached was not Michael King. By the summer of 2024, nearly 4 years had passed since Diajuan Triplett died on a Texas City street, yet the people connected to that shooting were still living with its consequences in very different ways. Michael King was sitting inside a Texas prison serving a sentence attached to Triplett’s killing, while D’Welyn Hurst remained outside carrying a grudge that had not faded with time. Around June 2024, Hurst crossed paths with Mary Jane Collins through mutual

connections, introducing himself as another young person trying to navigate life across the Houston and Galveston County area. At first, nothing about the interaction appeared unusual, which made it easy for Collins to lower her guard while allowing him into parts of her life most people never reached.

Looking back later, investigators would become interested in how deliberately that introduction seemed to unfold, though nobody around Collins fully understood where it was heading. During those early weeks, Hurst presented himself as helpful, attentive, plus genuinely interested in building a future with her.

Friends described a man who offered assistance whenever something needed fixing, spent time around her children, and blended into daily routines quickly enough that people stopped questioning his presence. As he became more familiar with the household, he started sharing meals, spending evenings together, plus participating in ordinary activities that made the relationship appear stable from the outside.

Collins was raising young sons while trying to improve her circumstances, so having somebody willing to contribute time and attention initially looked like a positive development. That impression spread among people close to her, causing relatives, co-workers, plus friends to view the relationship as another chapter in the life of a hard-working young mother, rather than something dangerous.

As the months progressed, however, subtle changes started appearing that gradually transformed the atmosphere around Collins. What initially looked like concern began taking the shape of jealousy, while ordinary questions evolved into constant monitoring of where she went, who she spoke with, plus how often she responded to messages.

Friends later recalled that he wanted increasing control over her attention, which created tension whenever she interacted with other people or discussed decisions independently. Although those warning signs emerged slowly, they became harder to ignore once arguments became more frequent, and Collins started withdrawing from people she had previously contacted regularly.

By that stage, the relationship was becoming less about companionship and more about control, even though many outsiders had not yet realized how serious the situation had become. The first people to see clear evidence of that change were not police officers or investigators, but rather the individuals Collins trusted most.

She began showing photographs of bruises to friends, sharing images through text messages, while trying to explain incidents happening behind closed doors. During FaceTime conversations, she sometimes pointed the camera toward injuries that worried the people listening on the other side of the screen.

One particularly alarming injury involved a bite mark, which immediately convinced several people around her that the situation had moved far beyond ordinary relationship problems. As those conversations continued, co-workers heard concerns growing in her voice, while trusted friends noticed she increasingly sounded nervous when discussing Hurst.

What started as private complaints slowly became a pattern that multiple people were witnessing in real time. Among the relatives paying close attention was Mary Jane’s grandmother, who occupied a central place within the family support system. As Collins shared details about arguments, injuries, plus escalating behavior, concern spread throughout the family, causing more people to watch the relationship carefully.

Friends exchanged messages about what they were seeing, while co-workers compared conversations that painted a similar picture of worsening treatment. Rather than hearing isolated complaints, they were receiving photographs, FaceTime calls, and direct accounts that all pointed toward the same troubling trend.

Each new incident added another layer to a growing sense that Collins was becoming trapped in something increasingly dangerous. Unfortunately, the people witnessing those developments remained largely on the outside looking in, unable to fully stop what was unfolding. While concern grew among relatives and friends, Hurst’s behavior continued moving in a darker direction, marked by intimidation, manipulation, plus recurring violence.

Arguments no longer seemed random, but instead followed an escalating pattern where tension led to threats, threats led to physical confrontations, then apologies often created temporary calm before the cycle started again. People close to Collins later described a relationship where fear gradually replaced comfort, making it harder for her to leave despite recognizing the danger.

Some observers believed financial pressures, housing concerns, plus responsibilities tied to raising children complicated her options, leaving her feeling increasingly cornered. As those pressures mounted, Hurst gained greater influence over her day-to-day life, which only strengthened the control he already exercised inside the relationship.

At the same time, another storyline continued unfolding inside a Texas prison, where Michael King was serving the sentence tied to Diajuan Triplett’s death. Although prison walls separated him from the outside world, they did not completely sever communication with family members or children, allowing occasional contact through calls and messages.

From King’s perspective, the murder case that placed him behind bars had already reached its conclusion, meaning his focus centered on surviving incarceration rather than ongoing disputes connected to 2020. Yet, even while he remained physically distant, his presence lingered inside conversations occurring far beyond prison grounds.

That reality mattered more than he realized since the person becoming increasingly involved with Mary Jane Collins happened to be the same man still carrying resentment over Triplett’s death. As investigators later reconstructed timelines, communications, plus personal histories, they began noticing how frequently the 2020 homicide surfaced beneath events occurring in 2024.

Triplett’s death had produced one storyline, King’s conviction had produced another, while Hurst’s inability to move beyond either event created a third narrative slowly intersecting with both. The deeper authorities examined relationships among the people involved, the harder it became to view the abuse against Collins as completely separate from older grievances.

Instead, patterns started emerging that connected present actions to unresolved anger dating back several years. What initially appeared to be a domestic violence case increasingly resembled something rooted in a much older conflict. That realization became even more unsettling once investigators focused on one detail that transformed the entire story.

Mary Jane Collins was not merely another woman Hurst happened to meet during 2024. She was the mother of Michael King’s children, which placed her directly at the intersection of the two men whose lives had been linked by Diajuan Triplett’s murder. Once that connection entered the investigation, the relationship itself began looking very different from what it had during the early stages.

Investigators would later conclude that what seemed like a romance may have carried another purpose from the beginning, which completely changed how the timeline was interpreted. The closer Dewayne Hurst got to Mary Jane Collins, the closer he positioned himself to the one person he never truly stopped thinking about, Michael King.

The morning of October 4th, 2024, started like countless other mornings inside the Teakwood Apartments on Repsdorph Road in Seabrook, where Mary Jane Collins was spending time with her young sons without any obvious sign that her life was nearing its end. While the children moved through their normal routine, Michael King was sitting inside a Texas prison carrying out a routine of his own which included finding ways to stay connected to family despite serving a 25-year sentence.

At some point that morning, King used a contraband cell phone to place a FaceTime call hoping to speak with his children, which was hardly unusual considering many incarcerated parents attempt to maintain contact whenever possible. What happened next immediately shattered any sense of normalcy surrounding that call.

Instead of hearing Mary Jane’s voice, King was greeted by D’Waelyn Hurst, whose presence on the screen instantly changed the atmosphere of the conversation. As the call continued, it became obvious that Hurst wanted more than a simple exchange of words since he deliberately positioned the phone in ways that ensured King could see what was happening inside the apartment.

One of the children was brought into view, placing a young boy directly in the middle of a conflict that began years before he could possibly understand it. According to investigators, Hurst instructed the child to repeat humiliating statements referencing Diazhuan Triplett’s death while forcing King to watch from prison.

What started as a family call was turning into something far darker with old grudges suddenly occupying the same room as innocent children. As tension escalated, Mary Jane could be heard crying while trying to protect her son from what was unfolding around him. Her voice grew increasingly desperate as she pleaded for the child to move away from Hurst, though her attempts to intervene only highlighted how little control she had over the situation.

Investigators later learned that the confrontation became physical during the call adding another layer of fear to an already disturbing scene. For King, the experience was especially brutal since he was watching events unfold from a prison cell with no realistic way to step in. The man convicted of killing Diajaun Triplett was now staring at Triplett’s younger brother through a cell phone screen while the mother of his children sat trapped in the middle.

That moment mattered far beyond ordinary domestic violence since it effectively brought two sides of a four-year feud face to face inside a single apartment. The same chain of events that began with Diajaun Triplett, moved through Michael King, involved Eddie Lee, and lingered through years of resentment had now landed directly in Mary Jane Collins’ living room.

As the call ended, King reportedly began reaching out to people outside prison trying to alert anyone who might be able to check on Mary Jane. Around the same period, King’s mother became involved after learning enough about the situation to grow alarmed herself. Efforts were made through phone calls, messages, and social media activity creating a growing sense of panic among people who feared something terrible was about to happen.

What happened during the next stretch of time became one of the most important questions investigators faced. The FaceTime call ended shortly before 10:00 that morning while ring camera footage later showed Hurst leaving the apartment before 11:00. Within that missing window, detectives believe the situation escalated beyond recovery as violence inside the apartment intensified.

Evidence collected at the scene pointed toward a brutal assault involving blunt force injuries along with a fatal stab wound while signs of a struggle appeared throughout the residence. Mary Jane’s children remained inside during at least part of the attack placing them frighteningly close to events that would leave permanent scars long after the physical evidence disappeared.

By the time Hurst walked away from the apartment, the revenge plot that investigators later reconstructed had already reached its final stage. The woman who never participated in the dispute involving Diajaun Triplett, Michael King, Eddie Lee, or the unnamed woman from Texas City was now dead while two children were left inside the aftermath.

When police finally arrived at Teague Wood Apartments expecting a disturbance involving a man with a gun, they were already stepping into the closing chapter of a story that began 4 years earlier on the streets of Texas City. After leaving the apartment on the Wayland Hurst, disappeared long enough to trigger a regional search involving agencies across Galveston County and surrounding areas.

While investigators reviewed ring footage, FaceTime evidence, witness statements, plus information supplied by family members, the case against him continued growing stronger with each passing day. Detectives traced movements between Seabrook and Texas City, slowly tightening the search until authorities finally located him on October 28th, 2024.

Once taken into custody, Hurst faced a growing list of charges tied not only to Mary Jane Collins’ death, but also to other alleged criminal conduct connected to his past. As the case moved forward, every major figure in the story remained trapped inside the consequences created years earlier.

Michael King continued serving his sentence in prison, forced to live with memories from the FaceTime call, along with the reality that Mary Jane Collins was gone. Eddie Lee remained the often forgotten second gunman whose role helped ignite the original conflict, while De’Ajuan Triplett remained the death at the center of everything that followed.

Mary Jane Collins, the one person with no role in that 2020 dispute, became his final victim, while her sons were left in the care of relatives carrying trauma that would not disappear when court proceedings ended. As vigils, memorials, and public reactions spread through communities connected to Seabrook, Texas City, Hitchcock, and Galveston County, people struggled to understand how so many lives became linked to one act of revenge.

The past stretched from a gas station confrontation involving Triplett, Michael King, Eddie Lee, and an unnamed woman, then moved through prison cells, family grievances, social media posts, abusive relationships, frightened children, and finally a living room floor inside Teakwood Apartments.

That is where the story began for investigators on October 4th, 2024. Though by the time they arrived, the damage had already spread across multiple families, leaving far more destruction than the original feud ever claimed on its own.