From September 1, 2024, until December 1, 2024, six men in Tarrant County received life sentences. Tarrant County is the source.
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From Sept. 1 until Dec. 1, 2024 in Tarrant County, six men have been sentenced to life in prison.
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The crimes were committed between 2020 and 2024.
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There were three men sentenced to death in Tarrant County in 2024.
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From Sept. 1 until Dec. 1, 2024 in Tarrant County, six men have been sentenced to life in prison.
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The crimes were committed between 2020 and 2024.
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There were three men sentenced to death in Tarrant County in 2024.
Texas’s Tarrant CountySix men in Tarrant County were found guilty of their crimes and given life sentences. All of the sentences were issued between September 1, 2024, and December 1, 2024.
The details for every case from the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office are provided here.
Tarrant County men sentenced to life in prison
Michael Williams, 57
Williams, Michael
On September 16, 2024, Williams was convicted of murder and given a life sentence. On April 25, 2021, around 1:30 a.m., Williams went up to Harold Yazzie, 62, who was seated in his truck at an apartment building in Fort Worth. Williams took Yazzie’s money and cell phone. When Yazzie attempted self-defense, he was shot in the leg and died in the hospital.
Kendrick Reagor, 41
Reagor, Kendrick
On September 27, 2024, Reagor was convicted of breaking and entering with the purpose to commit sexual assault and given a life sentence. Reagor broke into a woman’s residence on June 28, 2023, and aimed a revolver at her with the intention of sexually abusing her. Reagor was on parole at the time of his prior conviction for aggravated sexual assault of a minor.
Carlus Qualls, 52
Qualls, Carlus
On October 23, 2024, Qualls entered a guilty plea to murder and was given a life sentence. Oscar Lavant Payton was shot in the back of the head by recurrent criminal Qualls on April 30, 2021. In Fort Worth, he left his body by the side of the road.
Leroy White, 54
White, Leroy
On October 24, 2024, White was convicted of unlawfully possessing a handgun by a felon and given a life sentence. White was a security guard at a pub in Arlington on July 29, 2022, when he got into a fight with a customer and shot him. At the time of this offense, White was out of Dallas County Jail on bond for robbery. White had also been found guilty of murder.
Ryan Willrich, 32
Willrich, Ryan
On November 14, 2024, Willrich was convicted of murder and given a life sentence. On May 31, 2020, Willrich went with his girlfriend to an East Lancaster fast food restaurant to meet his girlfriend s ex, Sean Woodberry, and let him take the child she shares with him. The 27-year-old Woodbury went up to the driver’s side of the vehicle. Willrich, from the passenger s seat, shot and killed Woodberry. The child was still in the backseat of the car.
Esteban Hernandez, 22
Esteban Hernandez
Hernandez was found guilty of manufacturing and delivering between four and 200 grams of a controlled substance and sentenced to life in prison on November 20, 2024. On May 24, 2024, Tarrant County Sheriff s Office Warrants Division officers were notified Hernandez had three outstanding felony warrants. Hernandez threatened to cut off his GPS ankle monitor. Working with Tarrant County Pre-Trial GPS Officers, deputies tracked his location and found marijuana, cocaine, and drug paraphernalia in his car. The jury learned Hernandez has multiple pending felony cases against him, including an aggravated sexual assault of a child under the age of 14.
Capital punishment in Tarrant County in 2024
There were three men sentenced to death in Tarrant County in 2024. After a guilty verdict, the case is automatically appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeals. These men will be housed in Huntsville, Texas until they are killed by lethal injection.
Texas has carried out more executions than any other state since the early 1980s. According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, there have been 591 executions since 1982.
There have been 45 men put to death by lethal injection since 1982 who were sentenced in Tarrant County, including the first person to be killed by lethal injection, Charlie Brooks Jr.
In 2023, there were eight people killed by lethal injection in Texas. Three of them were sentenced in Dallas County. In 2024, five men were put to death in Texas. One of them was sentenced in Collin County.
Paige Terrell Lawyer, 45
Paige Terrell Lawyer (2018) | Courtesy: Rutherford County Sheriff
Lawyer in2018 strangled his former girlfriend and her daughter, O Tishae Womack, 30, and Ka Myria Womack, 10. Ka Myria had been viciously raped. A jury in April sentenced him to death.
Jason Alan Thornburg, 44
Thornburg decided that David Lueras, 42, Maricruz Mathis, 33, and Lauren Phillips, 34 all at separate timesneeded to be sacrificed. He killed them, dismembered their bodies, and set their remains on fire in a dumpster in 2021. A jury in December sentenced him to death.
Christopher Karon Turner, 48
Christopher Turner
Turner went into a convenience store in an unincorporated area of Tarrant County in 2020. He robbed the store andshot and killed Anwar Ali,62, who owned the store. A jury in November sentenced him to death.
“As terrible as these crimes and these criminals are, it is never an easy decision to seek the death penalty,” said District Attorney Phil Sorrells in a county newsletter. “We have a committee that, before making that determination, reviews the facts and circumstances of the crime, the investigation, the defendant s criminal history, and the indicators of the defendant s future dangerousness. Prior to this year, the last time a Tarrant County jury sent a defendant to Death Row was November 2019. That s when a jury convicted Hector Acosta, a Mexican cartel hitman, of capital murder for killing his roommate Erick Zelaya and his girlfriend Iris Chirinos in Arlington. He beheaded Zelaya and displayed his head with a sign threatening future violence.”
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Information in this article is from the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office.
Information in this article is from the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office.
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