TEXARKANA, Texas - A woman accused of murder in the 2015 death of a DeKalb, Texas, man is scheduled for a jury trial in Bowie County next week.
Shirley Ann Falkowski, 56, has been in the Bowie County jail since February 2019 on a murder charge. She was set for trial in February 2020 but the setting was continued when Falkowski came down with the flu. Following that, pandemic-related delays have stalled the trial setting.
Falkowski's case is now set for jury selection Tuesday before 5th District Judge Bill Miller at a convention center in Texarkana, Texas. Testimony in the trial is expected to begin the following day at the Bowie County courthouse in New Boston.
Falkowski allegedly confessed, during an interview in February 2019 with Texas Rangers, that she stabbed James Earl Johnson in his DeKalb, Texas, apartment in August 2015, according to a probable cause affidavit. Members of the DeKalb Police Department requested assistance in the investigation from the Texas Rangers after Johnson's body was discovered Aug. 5, 2015.
Witnesses reported that Falkowski may have been the last person to see Johnson alive.
Investigators acquired video surveillance footage that allegedly showed Falkowski attempted to use Johnson's debit card to withdraw money from a DeKalb bank at 12:33 a.m. and 12:35 a.m. on Aug. 5, 2015, while driving a white Pontiac sedan.
Texas Rangers tracked down the car and learned from the owner that he had loaned it to Falkowski to move Aug. 4, 2015.
A sample of blood collected from the car's interior allegedly was a match for Johnson's DNA.
When interviewed by law enforcement in August 2015, Falkowski allegedly claimed that Johnson had given her the debit card to get cash for cigarettes, but she was unable to make the purchase because the personal identification number she had for the card did not work. Falkowski was interviewed again of Feb. 12, 2019. During that interview, she allegedly confessed to stabbing Johnson with a knife.
According to the affidavit, the circumstances of Johnson's death are similar to a murder for which Falkowski served time in a Missouri prison. Court records in St. Louis show she pleaded guilty Sept. 29, 1998, to second-degree murder and armed criminal action. Falkowski received a 12-year term for murder and a three-year term for armed criminal action and the two sentences were run concurrently.
Falkowski is facing five to 99 years or life if convicted of murder in Texas.