Fort Worth man sentenced to die for brutally strangling girlfriend, her 10-year-old daughter
FORT WORTH, Texas - Tarrant County jurors sentenced a Fort Worth man to death for the 2018 strangulation deaths of his girlfriend and her 10-year-old daughter.
Prosecutors said Paige Terrell Lawyer murdered 30-year-old O’Tishae Womack and 10-year-old Ka’Myria Womack inside their apartment on Shady Lane Drive in Fort Worth.
Paige Terrell Lawyer (2018) | Courtesy: Rutherford County Sheriff
RELATED: Suspect in Fort Worth double murder arrested out of state
During the trial, O’Tishae’s sister, Lashundra Womack, testified that O’Tishae and Lawyer had been in a violent relationship. Police were called to the apartment several times because Lawyer allegedly choked his girlfriend.
Lashundra told jurors she saw Lawyer while out on a walk with her sister in April of 2018. The following day, her sister didn’t show up for their morning walk.
After her calls and text messages went ignored, Lashundra described walking into her sister’s apartment and finding the bodies.
2018
O’Tishae was on the kitchen floor with a grocery bag tied over her head. Her fourth-grade daughter was found in an upstairs bedroom under a blanket.
"Two lives were extinguished that day," said prosecutor Dale Smith. "Both died as a result of strangulation, the defendant's calling card."
Prosecutors presented DNA evidence found on the bag around O’Tishae’s head, under her fingernails, on Ka’Myria’s shorts, inside the girl’s underwear, on a bleach bucket, and on a Lysol can.
Lawyer’s fingerprint in Ka’Myria’s blood was also found on a mop.
Prosecutors suggested Lawyer killed the two because O’Tishae was planning to testify against him in an upcoming domestic violence trial.
During the sentencing phase, prosecutors told jurors that Ka’Myria had been viciously raped.
"He brutally, with no justification, took the lives of two people," prosecutor Lloyd Whelchel told the jury. "He is not going to change. He is going to be a future danger. And you know that."
Jurors had the option to sentence Lawyer to life in prison without the possibility of parole. They opted for the death penalty for the capital murder conviction.
Lawyer told the victims' family as he left the courtroom that another man killed O'Tishae and Ka'Myria.
But prosecutors said he confessed to his uncle before he was arrested in Tennessee.