A Texas man has pleaded guilty in connection with the 2021 murder of 4-year-old Cash Gernon.

FOX 4 reports that jury selection was set to kick off Monday morning at the Frank Crowley Courts Building in Dallas, for the trial of Darriynn Brown, aged 22.

The defense planned to present an insanity plea, aiming to prevent Brown, who was only 18 at the time of the murder, from facing the death penalty.

COURT TV reports that Brown pleaded guilty Monday to murder and waived his right to a jury trial. A judge sentenced him to life in prison.

As CrimeOnline previously reported, Brown abducted Cash at around 5 a.m. on May 15, 2021, from his bedroom inside a home near Dallas.

DNA evidence, coupled with security footage, implicated the defendant at the crime scene and recorded him removing the victim from the room where Cash slept alongside his twin brother.

Investigators said Brown took the boy to a trail in the neighborhood, fatally stabbed him, and then placed his body in a street.

A woman found Cash’s body later that morning in a pool of blood about eight blocks from the home.

In 2022, Magistrate Judge Farrel Chapman deemed Darriynn Brown unfit to stand trial. As a result, Chapman directed that Brown receive treatment from the North Texas State Hospital System.

Brown reportedly has schizophrenia, and said that he was hearing voices when he abducted the boy.

Brown spent a year in the state hospital, with a judge declaring this year that he’s now competent to stand trial.

[Feature Photo: Cash Gernon/Family Handout]