Texas Truck Driver Faces Life in Prison for Murder of Sex-Trafficking Victim

A commercial truck driver from Austin, Texas, is facing a sentence of life in prison following his conviction on a charge of murdering a sex-trafficking victim. The woman’s body was found in East Texas after she got in the driver’s truck in Dallas.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas, a Texas jury handed down a guilty verdict against 28-year-old Naasson Hazzard, a resident of Austin, following a trial that lasted for nine days. The jury convicted Hazzard of kidnapping, resulting in death.

Acting U.S. Attorney Chad Meecham said, “A young woman’s life was cut tragically short, her last moments likely spent in terror. But those final moments do not define her life. She mattered, her life had worth, and we are proud to put her kidnapper behind bars.”

The jury deliberated for one hour following the nine-day trial and convicted Hazzard for the kidnapping and murder of a 25-year-old woman. Video cameras captured images of the woman, a sex worker, getting into Hazzard’s tractor-trailer in Dallas on the night of August 15.

Hazzard drove to a nearby parking lot with the woman, where he remained for about 17 minutes, prosecutors told the jury. Cell phone records show that Hazzard then traveled to a wooded area near Pittsburg, Texas. Hazzard texted his boss from that location, saying he would be out sick the following day.

Investigators found the victim’s decomposing body with a black plastic bag over her head in the wooded area where Hazzard had parked.

Evidence showed Hazzard remained at that location for about an hour before he drove off to deliver his load. Prosecutors said he and his wife returned to the area before departing for dinner in Tyler, Texas.

Prosecutors presented evidence that Hazzard attempted to conceal evidence in the case by changing cell phones and deleting his Google and Life360 location-sharing information.

“Just a few months ago, this violent criminal not only kidnapped an unsuspecting victim, but also took her life. From that time, our commitment has been to seek justice,” Travis Pickard, Special Agent in Charge of HSI Dallas said in a written statement. “With this guilty verdict, we are one step closer to achieving justice. HSI remains steadfast in using every method at our disposal to apprehend those who commit heinous acts in our communities.”

Fox 4 in Dallas reported that Hazzard exchanged more than a dozen messages with the victim between August 9 and 15. He contacted her through online sex ads. The woman’s car remained in the parking lot where Hazard was seen picking her up.

The family of the victim told Fox4 that the woman served in the U.S. Army before becoming a victim of sex trafficking.

Hazzard now faces an automatic sentence of life in federal prison.