By Naheed Rajwani and Julieta Chiquillo
The Dallas Morning News
ROYSE CITY, Texas — A University Park fire captain was lured into rural Rockwall County and fatally ambushed by his wife and the man with whom she was having an affair, court records say.
Capt. Bob Poynter and his wife, Chacey, were in the midst of a divorce when she and Michael Garza hatched a plan to kill him so they could remain together, according to arrest affidavits made public on Tuesday.
Bob Poynter, 47, was found dead Friday night in the 600 block of FM35 in Royse City. He had been shot in the head.
Chacey Poynter , 29, was arrested on a charge of conspiracy to commit murder. Garza, 37, was arrested on charges of murder and property theft.
Chacey Poynter told police she and Garza were seeing each other while she was married to the fire captain. She claimed that her husband abused her, filed for a divorce and told her she wouldn’t get custody of their 6-year-old daughter, arrest affidavits say.
Dallas fire captain, Bob Poynter, fatally shot in car, wife arrested for conspiracy to… https://t.co/HGMzb8CDWx pic.twitter.com/oync3QgVKg
— JosDaily1 (@JosDaily1) September 12, 2016
Chacey Poynter discussed the alleged abuse with Garza, who told her he was a “shot caller” who was willing to order people to be killed for her, police wrote in arrest affidavits.
On Friday, police say, Garza and Chacey Poynter met up at his place where they had sex in the evening. They also came up with a plan to kill Robert Poynter and make it seem like a robbery, Chacey Poynter recounted to police later.
She said she made her Jeep seem like it was stuck in mud and called her husband for help. They met at the end of County Road 2595 and walked to her Jeep, where police say Garza was waiting.
She told her husband to move the Jeep back on the main road, and yelled “Stop” just before Garza shot him in the head, killing him, according to her arrest affidavit.
Garza allegedly told Chacey Poynter he would burn the victim’s truck and his clothes so there would be no evidence, but that apparently didn’t happen. She tried calling 911, but he took her phone from her and tossed it into the mud, police said.
Chacey Poynter told police that “she did not want Robert Poynter dead she only wanted him to hurt the way he made her hurt,” police wrote in her arrest affidavit.
Poynter was a captain with the University Park Fire Department, where he had worked for 18 years. He started as a firefighter/paramedic and was promoted to lieutenant in 2002 before being promoted again to captain in 2012.
He and three other University Park firefighters were sent to Louisiana to search for survivors after Hurricane Katrina moved through the New Orleans area.
“The members of the University Park Fire Department were deeply saddened to hear of the death of Captain Robert Poynter,” the department said in a written statement. “Our heartfelt thoughts and prayers are with the family at this difficult time.”
Garza and Chacey Poynter remained in the Hunt County jail on Tuesday. They turned down interview requests from The News.
Bob and Chacey Poynter got married in December 2009. Less than five years later, he filed for divorce. The case is listed as pending, according to the Kaufman County district clerk’s office.
Bob Poynter told a court that the couple had stopped living together in May 2014 and cited “conflict of personalities” as the grounds for divorce. He said he would try to reach an agreement with his wife about custody, court records show.
There was no mention of the financial strain the couple experienced early in their marriage. They filed for bankruptcy in the summer of 2011.
Neither Bob nor Chacey Poynter had asked for a protective order against the other, according to the divorce petition.
Funeral services held Thursday for University Park Fire Capt. Bob Poynter. pic.twitter.com/W7agwc9LmO
— FOX 4 NEWS (@FOX4) September 15, 2016