Jury takes 19 minutes to convict man who beat a mother to death while she begged to ‘be with her baby’

David Spates and Kayla Larry (Harris County District Attorney’s Office)

A 61-year-old Texas man will spend the remainder of his days behind bars for killing a 28-year-old mother, beating, stabbing, and suffocating the victim using a variety of deadly weapons after accusing her of speaking to the police about one of their friends.

A judge on Monday ordered David Spates to serve a mandatory sentence of life in a state correctional facility without the possibility for parole in the 2020 slaying of Kayla Lary, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.

Following a seven-day trial, a jury in Harris County deliberated for only 19 minutes before finding Spates guilty of capital murder in Lary’s horrific death.

“This was not just a vicious and cruel murder, it was a premeditated and planned-out capital murder,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a statement. “The victim was tied up, with a garbage bag over her head, and then beaten with a hammer, stomped on and stabbed until she was dead.”

Story continues

TRENDING NOW

LATEST LOCAL NEWS