In 62-year-old man’s murder in Fort Worth, jury assesses life prison term for shooter
A jury that determined a defendant who in 2021 shot to death a man outside of a Fort Worth apartment complex was guilty of murder concluded on Monday that he should serve life in prison.
Harold Yazzie was 62 when he died after Michael Williams at close contact fired a bullet into Yazzie’s left thigh, the jury found at trial. The round transected Yazzie’s femoral artery and femoral vein and left his body.
The encounter between Yazzie and Williams occurred about 1:30 a.m. on April 25, 2021, at the complex at Normandy Road and Handley Drive, in the Meadowbrook section of east Fort Worth.
Williams, who is 57, was in July 2021 indicted on capital murder in the killing. The Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office alleged three theories under which Williams was guilty of capital murder, including that Yazzie’s death occurred during a robbery.
The jury on Friday found Williams guilty of murder, a lesser-included offense on which Judge Chris Wolfe, who presided at the trial in the 213th District Court in Tarrant County, instructed the panel at the request of the defense.
The jury also was permitted to consider that the homicide was manslaughter, a reckless killing.
Williams did not testify in the guilt-innocence phase of trial.
In the punishment phase, and too late for the jury’s consideration of self-defense justification, Williams took the witness stand, defense attorney Kevin Rousseau said in an interview with a reporter. Rousseau was appointed to represent Williams, as was defense attorney Sean Colston.
Williams testified that an initial encounter ended and Williams was walking away when he was called back to Yazzie’s vehicle. Yazzie assaulted Williams before Yazzie was shot, the defendant testified, according to Rousseau.
Tarrant County Assistant Criminal District Attorneys Peter Gieseking and Ashton Moore prosecuted the case.
Williams approached Yazzie as he sat in his truck at the complex, and Williams stole Yazzie’s cellphone and wallet, according to the district attorney’s office. Yazzie was shot when Yazzie tried to defend himself, according to the state’s argument.
Accomplice Lucille Wilson testified against Williams. In the hours after Williams was sentenced on Monday, the district attorney’s office filed under its discretion a motion to dismiss a capital murder indictment in which Wilson was charged in the Yazzie case.
A person cannot be convicted on the testimony of an accomplice unless that testimony is corroborated, the jury was instructed.
Because of Williams’ status as a habitual offender, the jury was directed to select a prison term of between 25 and 99 years or life.
Williams was in 1989 convicted of felony theft in state court in Alaska and in 2010 of felon in possession of a firearm in U.S. District Court in the Western District of Tennessee.
This story was originally published September 17, 2024 at 6:16 PM.
