A Texas teenager was found guilty of capital murder after planning to rob and kill his girlfriend’s grandma.
According to the Galveston County Daily News, KVUE, and Click2Houston, a jury in Galveston County found 18-year-old Uriah Lee Urick Jr. guilty of capital murder on Friday, Nov. 7, following the February murder of his girlfriend’s grandmother, Tammy King, aged 61.
In Texas, a capital murder conviction results in an automatic life sentence without the possibility of release.
During the week-long trial, the prosecution showed jurors text messages and other digital evidence indicating that Urick and his girlfriend, Tara King, had a sophisticated plan to rob and murder Tammy.
According to the reports, prosecutors told jurors that Urick and Tara, then 17, had planned her grandmother’s murder for several weeks.
According to the Daily News, the text conversations produced in court featured interactions between the adolescent couple as they planned to abduct and kill Tammy while robbing her of money, methamphetamine, and firearms. They also pretended that Tammy was abusing them.
Prosecutors alluded to particular communications in an attempt to prove that the murder was premeditated, as the two adolescents indicated that they had ammo that would “shred through skin,” and that they planned to “kill her at 4.” They also mentioned, “We ride at dawn.”
Urick also described the killing as “the beginning of the rest of our lives,” according to the reports.
According to the prosecution, Tammy was shot in the head on February 5 at her house in Bacliff, some 30 minutes outside of Galveston, and her body was discovered several days later under a mound of blankets during a welfare check.
According to investigators, the adolescent couple then stole money from a lockbox or safe at the grandmother’s home, escalating the crime from murder to capital murder. Investigators discovered that hundreds of dollars were successfully transferred from Tammy’s bank account to Tara’s Cash App account.
According to court documents acquired by KVUE, Urick’s mother told detectives that she feared her son was capable of murder and that Tara “hated” her grandmother for refusing to let Urick stay the night at the residence.
Urick’s mother also told police that Tara told her she wanted Tammy to die, and Urick’s stepfather stated that he believed Urick was capable of murder because of his “violent tendencies.”
Urick and Tara were detained in Laredo, a town on the US-Mexico border, on February 9 after hitchhiking and living with many different people they met on social media over the course of three days.
According to the Daily News, one witness eventually cooperated with detectives after telling them he drove Urick and King to Laredo after the assassination and dropped them off at a homeless shelter.
During the trial, he revealed that Urick offered him $1,000 and said that he “couldn’t get the smell of burning flesh” out of his nose while on the trip. The testimony eventually helped investigators locate the murder weapons.
Urick’s defense counsel, Bill Agnew, said that the crime was not premeditated and was committed by “two naive, drug-influenced teenagers chasing independence, not money,” according to the Daily News. He further claimed that the prosecution failed to prove that the robbery was the motive for the murder.
“Justice has been served for Tammy King and her loved ones,” Galveston County Sheriff Jimmy Fullen stated after Urick’s verdict was read in court, according to KVUE.
Tara King has also been charged with capital murder, according to media reports. She is expected to stand trial in January 2026.
