A Houston man pleaded guilty to three charges of murder in exchange for three sentences of 60 years in prison for committing a triple murder in northwest Harris County in 2017, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced.

“Three families are suffering unthinkable heartbreak because of the actions of one man with a gun who made the decision that he wanted to start shooting,” Ogg said. “Prosecutors with our Homicide Division made sure that he was held accountable for his actions, and hopefully he will spend the rest of his life in prison.”

Jeffrey Duane Noble, 41, pleaded guilty to shooting John Sciandra, 67, Sciandra’s 22-year-old daughter Jessica Sciandra and her boyfriend, 21-year-old Jordan Collier, on Dec. 8, 2017.

John and his daughter and a female roommate lived in a house near the Addicks Reservoir that was severely flooded during Hurricane Harvey three months before the shooting. The family was going through flood restoration, and large swaths of drywall and carpet had been removed.

Noble knew the Sciandra family socially and had been to the house several times. The day before the murders was Noble’s 35th birthday, and he made plans with the roommate and another friend to go out.

That outing was cut short when Noble, who is schizophrenic, started talking about hearing voices.

The next day Noble arrived at the house, went to the roommate’s bedroom and showed her that he brought a .50-caliber assault rifle under his coat.

He fired a shot though the partial wall into Jessica Sciandra’s room, hitting Collier in the head, killing him.

At some point, Noble shouted at the roommate to get out of the house. The roommate ran to a neighbor’s house to call police but heard gunfire erupt as she was retreating to safety.

Noble fatally shot John and Jessica Sciandra, and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office responded to the call, but Noble had fled.

Noble was arrested days later at a Dallas-area gas station after a customer called police because they had seen him smoking methamphetamine near the business. He gave police a fake name, but after his arrest his fingerprints showed that he was wanted in Harris County.

On Thursday, he pleaded guilty to three counts of murder in exchange for a sentence of 60 years in each case instead of facing life in prison without parole if convicted of capital murder. Five people who were connected to the three victims gave victim impact statements after the plea. One noted that John Sciandra had made it clear he did not trust Noble.

Assistant District Attorney Rebecca Marshall, who is a chief in the Homicide Division of the District Attorney’s Office, prosecuted Noble.

“He had a plan. He entered that home with a .50-caliber assault rifle and massacred one after another after another and then tried to escape any accountability by fleeing,” Marshall said. “There are mental health issues in this case, but that doesn’t give someone a pass to brutally murder three people.”

As part of the plea agreement, Noble cannot appeal the three murder convictions or the three 60-year sentences, which will run concurrently.

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