Teen Faces Life Sentence After Being Found Guilty of Plotting to Rob and Murder His Girlfriend's Grandmother By Charlotte Phillipp

A Texas teenager has been found guilty of capital murder after he plotted to rob and kill his girlfriend’s grandmother.

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 killing of his girlfriend’s grandmother, 61-year-old Tammy King, in February.

In Texas, a conviction for capital murder carries an automatic life sentence without the possibility of parole.

During a week-long trial, the prosecution showed jurors text messages and other digital evidence that showed Urick and his girlfriend, Tara King, forming a detailed plan to rob and murder Tammy.

According to the outlets, prosecutors told jurors that Urick and Tara, then 17, plotted her grandmother’s murder for several weeks.

The text messages shown in court included exchanges between the teenage couple as they discussed kidnapping and killing Tammy while robbing her of money, methamphetamine and firearms, per the Daily News. The pair also pretended that Tammy was allegedly abusing them.

Prosecutors pointed to specific messages in an attempt to prove that the murder was premeditated, as the two teens wrote that they had ammunition that would “shred through skin,” and that they planned to “kill her at 4. They also wrote, “We ride at dawn.”

Urick also described the killing as “the start of the rest of our lives,” per the outlets.

According to the prosecution, Tammy was shot in the head on Feb. 5 at her home in Bacliff, about 30 minutes outside of Galveston, and her body was discovered under a pile of blankets during a welfare check several days later.

Investigators said the teenage couple then stole money from a lockbox or safe at the grandmother’s home, which escalated the crime from murder to capital murder. Investigators also found that thousands of dollars had been successfully transferred from Tammy’s bank account to Tara’s Cash App account.

During the investigation, Urick’s mother told investigators that she believed her son was capable of murder, adding that Tara “hated” her grandmother because she wouldn’t allow Urick to spend the night at the house, according to court documents obtained by KVUE.

Urick’s mother also told police that Tara said she wanted Tammy to die, and Urick’s stepfather added that he believed Urick was capable of murder due to his “violent tendencies.”

After hitching rides and staying with several different people they contacted via social media over the course of three days, Urick and Tara were eventually arrested in Laredo, a town located on the U.S.-Mexico border, on Feb. 9.

One witness, who told investigators that he drove Urick and King to Laredo after the killing and dropped them off at a homeless shelter, eventually cooperated with the investigation, according to the Daily News.

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He shared during the trial that Urick offered him $1,000 and confessed that he “couldn’t get the smell of burning flesh” out of his nose during the trip. The witness eventually helped investigators find the murder weapons.

Bill Agnew, Urick’s defense attorney, argued that the crime was not premeditated and was the actions of “two naive, drug-influenced teenagers chasing independence, not money,” per the Daily News. He also argued that the prosecution failed to prove the robbery was a motive for the murder.

“Justice has been served for Tammy King and her loved ones,” Galveston County Sheriff Jimmy Fullen said after Urick’s verdict was read in court, per KVUE.

Tara King has also been charged with capital murder, according to the outlets. She is scheduled to face trial in January 2026.