A gangland killer has been jailed for the rest of his life after he shot an 11-year-old boy and his stepfather dead outside their home.

Cold-blooded Desmond Hawkins, 23, gunned down the pair outside their home in Houstin, Texas, USA, after waiting three hours for them to come home.

After creeping through a hole he’d cut in a chain-link fence he killed Menuell Solomon, 41, and his stepson Dominic Sumicek as they sat in their car.

Solomon was shot four times as he tried to shield his stepson, who was shot twice.

Both died instantly in the hail of bullets, Hawkins’s murder trial heard.

Hawkins was tracked down as the killer by a GPS ankle tag he was wearing while he was free from prison on parole for an earlier killing.

At a hearing on 18th September, Hawkins was jailed for life with no possibility of parole which means he will die in prison.

Police told the court that a week before the killings in 2020 Solomon told them that an unknown man had tried to kill him as he parked his car but he had escaped.

He said he had no idea why he had been targeted.

District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a statement obtained by Newsflash: “A little boy with his whole life ahead of him was murdered because of a cold-blooded ambush in broad daylight.

“This was a capital murder, and the appropriate sentence is life in prison without parole.”

Assistant District Attorney Christopher Condon said: “Based on what we saw in the evidence, we believe this was an orchestrated hit.

“The jury did the right thing in handing down a conviction for capital murder.”

A second assistant DA Nancy Ta added: “The defendant laid in wait for three hours, during the light of day to execute a young boy and his stepfather.

“Hawkins made a decision to end Dominic’s life before the boy could even turn 12, and now 12 citizens of Harris County have decided how Hawkins will spend the rest of his.”

It is still unclear why Hawkins targeted Solomon, police said.