Fort Worth Man Sentenced to Death for Double Strangulation and Rape of Daughter

A Fort Worth jury has sentenced a local man, Paige Terrell Lawyer, to death for murdering his girlfriend O’Tishae Womack and her 10-year-old daughter Ka’Myria in their apartment on Shady Lane Drive in April of last year. Prosecutors alleged that Lawyer strangled both victims; during the trial, it emerged that police had been called to the property several times due to allegations that he choked his girlfriend. O’Tishae’s sister Lashundra Womack testified that she saw Lawyer while out on a walk with her sibling in April of 2018 but did not hear from either woman again after they failed to meet for their morning routine the following day; upon entering the apartment, she discovered O’Tishae’s body covered by a grocery bag and Ka’Myria beneath blankets upstairs. DNA evidence was found on items such as the plastic covering O’Tishae’s head, her daughter’s shorts, underwear, bleach bucket, Lysol can, and even mop – this fingerprint belonging to Lawyer also carried a trace of his victim’s blood. Prosecutors suggested that he killed both women because O’Tishae was preparing for an upcoming trial regarding domestic abuse allegations against him; during the sentencing phase, it emerged that Ka’Myria had been violently raped prior to her murder, prompting Whelchel, a prosecutor, to tell jurors: “He brutally and without justification took the lives of two people. He is not going to change. He will be a future danger.” The jury opted for capital punishment in response to Lawyer’s conviction rather than life imprisonment with no possibility of parole; as he departed the court, the killer proffered untruthful declarations blaming another individual for his crimes – however, prosecutors claimed that this confession had already been made by Lawyer himself before being apprehended in Tennessee.