90-year-old veteran is shot dead and then run over outside retirement home during carjacking

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A 90-year-old veteran who was killed during a “brutal” Houston carjacking at his retirement community has been identified by his son.

Nelson Beckett, 90, was shot around 12:45 p.m. Saturday before a man stole his car, police said.

Surveillance footage captured a man in his late 20s approaching Beckett and initiating a conversation as he was sitting in his car in the Lone Star Living retirement community parking lot.

After a brief conversation, the suspect attacked and shot Beckett, throwing him out of his vehicle, and driving off with his car. While the suspect was fleeing, he ran over the 90-year-old.

In addition to the car, the suspect also stole some of Beckett's belongings.

Police eventually found the car abandoned about 10 minutes away at another apartment complex. The gunman is still at large as of Monday morning. He is described as a Black man between the ages of 25 and 30 years old.

Beckett was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Tim Beckett, Nelson's son, told ABC13 that his father had two children, five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Beckett served in the Navy and later worked in sales. He was also active in his church.

Tami Freund, Beckett’s daughter, said her father loved telling jokes and making people laugh and was always willing to give rides to people who did not have cars.

“He would do anything for anyone. He told me all the time how lucky we are to have such a big, wonderful, loving, Christian family. He loved big and loved his family so much!” Freund said in a statement she sent to KPRC2.

"What a foolish, brutal act against the mildest of men, an act that makes absolutely no sense," Steve Sargent, minister at Southwest Central Church of Christ, where Beckett once served as an elder, said at a service following his death.

Steve Sandifer, a man who had been friends with Beckett for 47 years, told KPRC2 he was shocked by the killing.

“I told his daughter, I said, you know, had she called me that morning and said dad didn’t wake up this morning, I would have said, good. He’s lived his 90 years. He’s been a champion of faith and everything else. He’s lived a great life. But to hear that he had been murdered. That just, that was just beyond me,” he told the outlet.

He remembered his friend as a funny storyteller who was devoted to his faith and his family.

Crime Stoppers is offering a $5,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest of the suspect. Anyone with any information regarding the case is asked to call the Houston Police at at 713-308-3600.