James Calvert was sentenced to death by the State of Texas for the murder of Jelena Sriraman
According to court documents James Calvert would murder his estranged wife Jelena Sriraman and would then kidnap his son and head to Louisianna
James Calvert would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
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Where Is James Calvert Now
James Calvert is incarcerated at the Polunsky Unit
James Calvert Case
While visiting Croatia, Appellant met the victim, Jelena. She accompanied him on his return to Tyler, and they married in 2004. Jelena became increasingly fearful of Appellant over the course of their marriage.
Appellant and Jelena’s first child, E.C., was born in 2006. Their second child, L.C., was born in 2008. Appellant and Jelena separated in 2009 and divorced in 2010. Jelena obtained a restraining order that barred Appellant from going to her new home. According to their divorce decree, Jelena had primary possession of the children. She could not move with the children more than 125 miles from the Smith County Courthouse. Appellant had visitation rights on alternate weekends and Thursdays. The order specified that Jelena and Appellant would exchange the children at Jason’s Deli.
In January 2012, Jelena married Arvind Sriraman. Jelena wanted to move with the children to Houston, where Sriraman had taken an engineering job, but Appellant refused to agree to modify the terms of the child custody order. He was also uncooperative during mediation. Eventually, Jelena and Sriraman took the matter to trial. On October 19, 2012, a jury determined that the custody order should be modified so that Jelena and the children could move up to 500 miles away from the Smith County Courthouse.
About twelve days later, on October 31st, Jelena was packing to move to Houston. L.C., age four, was home with her. E.C., age seven, was at school. Although Appellant did not have visitation that day, Jelena had agreed that Appellant could take the children to dinner and then trick-or-treating.
Shortly before the scheduled visit, Appellant told Jelena that they needed to exchange the children at her house instead of the deli. Jelena did not know it but Appellant had been avoiding service of a motion by Deidre Adams, his first wife. Adams and Appellant had a child together, J.C., and Adams had filed a motion to enforce court-ordered child support. Appellant suspected that Adams was planning to serve him with that motion at the deli. Jelena would not agree to exchange the children at her house. Appellant angrily canceled the visit. Jelena was upset about this incident, which she relayed to multiple friends.
Less than three hours later, Appellant broke into Jelena’s house and, in front of L.C., shot her multiple times. Appellant took L.C. and fled to Louisiana. That evening, following a high-speed chase in West Monroe, Louisiana, police officers arrested Appellant and discovered L.C. physically unharmed in the back seat of Appellant’s car.
Appellant was indicted for capital murder. Counsel (Jeffery Haas and Jason Cassel) were appointed to represent him. However, in February 2014, Appellant requested and was granted the right to represent himself. He represented himself through approximately fifty pretrial hearings, voir dire, and roughly three weeks of the jury trial. Appellant’s attorneys, in standby status, were present and available to assist him. On September 15, 2015, during the guilt phase, the trial court revoked Appellant’s pro se status and reinstated counsel to represent him.
