Former Euless Trinity star gets life sentence for killing Hurst woman in 2016
.jpg "A Tarrant County prosecutor told a jury that murder suspect George E. Folau of Euless had lived in a methamphetamine underworld that led to the 2016 killing of a Hurst woman.")
A former Euless Trinity football standout and reputed gang member was sentenced to life in prison Friday for fatally shooting a Hurst woman in 2016.
A Tarrant County jury on Thursday had found George E. Folau, 29, guilty of murder.
Loan Nguyen was shot to death on the night of May 10, 2016, after Folau, of Euless, and another man arrived at her Hurst apartment. One moment Nguyen's boyfriend had stepped into a bedroom; the next he heard gunshots, Pam Bogges, a Tarrant County assistant district attorney, told the jury.
Folau was a meth user and distributor, Bogges, who prosecuted the case with Tracey Kapsidelis, told jurors. Folau, she said, "was there to return property he had stolen and he shot her at point-blank range."
Hurst police later discovered a notebook in Nguyen's purse that noted drug transactions.
Folau is also accused in the shooting death two days earlier of Nicholas Jackson, 34, of Fort Worth, according to Tarrant County court records.
David Bays, Folau's attorney, had acknowledged to the jury of two men and 10 women that his client was in a "rough and tumble world."
"We're not going to hide his past. George Folau was a young man with a promising future who fell in with the wrong people," Bays said at the start of the trial.
Folau was an all-district offensive tackle for the 2005 state champion Trojans. He is described in court records as a debt collector for drug dealers and an associate of Tongan Crips and Puro Tango street and prison gangs.
He is also accused of drug and burglary offenses in the days before the fatal shooting.
Bogges told the jury that Nguyen and her boyfriend were expecting a visit from Folau. After she was shot, her boyfriend opened fire on the two men, Bogges said.
The jury heard a 911 call in which a witness reported hearing more than 10 shots fired at an apartment complex in the 1800 block of Sotogrande Boulevard.
Courtney Weston testified she was getting out of her vehicle when she heard the gunshots.
"I saw two men running towards me away from one apartment complex," Weston told the jury. "From the complex where the two men had come from, I saw a tall man with a rifle shooting at them."
Police found Folau with a gunshot wound to his back, but he refused to cooperate with officers, according to testimony. He was later identified as one of the two men seen running.
This story was originally published March 20, 2018 at 2:42 PM with the headline "Former Euless Trinity star gets life sentence for killing Hurst woman in 2016."