Graham man convicted of capital murder for killing 2 sons

A Tarrant County jury deliberated for less than 45 minutes Friday before convicting a Graham man of capital murder in the deaths of his two young sons in 2011.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, and the sentencing phase of the trial is scheduled to begin Monday. Jurors will be asked to decide whether Gabriel Armandariz, 32, should die or go to prison for life.

Bad weather this week occasionally delayed the trial, and Monday’s proceedings were canceled altogether. On Friday, the courtroom staff had trouble finding a restaurant that would deliver lunch to jurors, and witnesses called to testify reported long, slow drives through the snowstorm that hit North Texas.

But in the end, things went quickly.

Defense attorney Terri Moore acknowledged to the jury that Armandariz was guilty and then said deliberations should not take long because his guilt was not in question.

Jurors had yet to hear the whole story of why Armandariz did what he did, she said, and they would learn that next week.

“He’s crazy, but Gabriel is not insane,” Moore said.

In her closing argument, prosecutor Lisa Tanner — in response to Moore — said that she knows why Armandariz killed his children.

“This was pure meanness,” Tanner said. “I have no doubt that he loved his children. But the sad fact is that he hated Lauren Smith more.”

Smith, the boys’ mother, had a three-year troubled relationship with Armandariz.

Armandariz strangled 8-month-old Luke and 2-year-old Gatlin on April 13, 2011, at his family’s house in Graham. He hid their bodies in the crawl space under the house.

There was a second man in Smith’s life, Jeremy Larramore, the father of her oldest child. The hatred between Armandariz and Larramore ended in the deaths of the two brothers, according to testimony Friday.

Larramore, 26, and Smith met in high school, had a daughter together and had just recently broken up when Armandariz entered the picture. Larramore testified Friday that he and Armandariz got into a fistfight during their first meeting and that the animosity only grew.

Larramore married another woman, but Armandariz texted him incessantly and threatened to steal his children.

“He was constantly bringing up my wife in a sexual way,” Larramore testified. “He was saying he was having sex with my wife.”

Larramore and Smith had an informal shared-custody arrangement for their daughter, but he went to court to reduce her access because she continued to involve Armandariz in their visits.

On one occasion, Armandariz got drunk, became angry, and tossed clothes and furniture belonging to Smith and her daughter outside, in full view of Larramore’s visiting relatives.

Smith’s time with her oldest was reduced to supervised visits only, Larramore told the jury.

Armandariz was six years older than Smith, had been in prison on a drug conviction and told Larramore that he had been a gang member, Larramore said.

Both men threatened each other, and Larramore once texted that he would “slit [Armandariz’s] throat” for asserting that he was having sex with Smith, according to a text message read into the trial record. Once, Armandariz threatened to steal Larramore’s children as they played in the yard, Larramore said.

Each man told the other that he had fathered the other man’s children, Larramore testified.

“Sometimes I would get 10, 20, 30 text messages from him a day, and I got tired of hearing from him,” Larramore said. “My grandmother told me to turn the other cheek and let it go. But sometimes I didn’t.”

The case was moved from Young County to Tarrant County because of extensive pretrial publicity. Graham is about 90 miles northwest of Fort Worth.

Weather permitting, the trial will resume Monday. State District Judge Stephen Bristow of Young County is presiding. Tanner and Tom Cloudt are assistant state attorneys general. Assisting Moore with the defense is Joetta Keene.

This story was originally published February 27, 2015 at 7:03 PM with the headline "Graham man convicted of capital murder for killing 2 sons."