Six men have been sentenced to life in prison in Tarrant County from Sept. 1, 2024 through Dec. 1, 2024. (Source: Tarrant County)
TARRANT COUNTY, Texas – In Tarrant County, six men have been sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of their crimes. The sentences all happened from Sept. 1, 2024, and Dec. 1, 2024.
Here is the information for each case from the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office.
Tarrant County men sentenced to life in prison
Michael Williams, 57
Williams was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison on September 16, 2024. Around 1:30 a.m. on April 25, 2021, Williams approached Harold Yazzie, 62, who was sitting in his truck at a Fort Worth apartment complex. Williams stole Yazzie’s cell phone and wallet. Yazzie was shot in the leg when he tried to defend himself and later died at the hospital.
Kendrick Reagor, 41
Reagor was found guilty of burglary of a habitation with the intent to commit sexual assault and sentenced to life in prison on September 27, 2024. On June 28, 2023, Reagor forced his way into a woman’s apartment and pointed a gun at her with the intent of sexually assaulting her. Reagor had previously been convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child and was on parole at the time.
Carlus Qualls, 52
Qualls pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life in prison on October 23, 2024. On April 30, 2021, Qualls, a habitual offender, shot Oscar Lavant Payton in the back of the head. He dumped his body by the side of the road in Fort Worth.
Leroy White, 54
White was found guilty of unlicensed possession of a firearm by a felon and sentenced to life in prison on October 24, 2024. On July 29, 2022, while working as security at an Arlington bar, White was involved in an altercation where he fired a weapon at a patron. White was on bond for robbery out of Dallas County Jail at the time of this offense. White had also been convicted of the crime of murder.
Ryan Willrich, 32
Willrich was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison on November 14, 2024. 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. Woodbury, 27, approached the driver’s side of the car. Willrich, from the passenger’s seat, shot and killed Woodberry. The child was still in the backseat of the car.
Esteban Hernandez, 22
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 in 2018 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 times – needed 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
Turner went into a convenience store in an unincorporated area of Tarrant County in 2020. He robbed the store and shot 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.”
