Tarrant jury rejects death penalty, decides man who shot 3 in head should serve life
Virginia Lewis was the first of them to die.
Eleven days before Christmas in 2020, Lamont Cousins, a massive man in his 40s, shot the great-grandmother in the left temple. Lewis died on an office floor inside the west Fort Worth used car sales business where she worked.
Cousins directed another man to tie up with rope Clay Turrentine and Veronica Jones and drive them and Cousins in a pickup truck from Bill’s Auto Sales to desolate Palo Pinto County.
The pickup’s driver parked outside an abandoned bait shop, and Cousins took Turrentine out of the backseat.
Just inside the building, Cousins shot Turrentine, who owned the car sales business, in the back of the head.
From the pickup, Jones heard the shot and knew what was to come, the driver, Andrew Vandermeer, recalled.
Cousins opened the truck’s rear door.
“You don’t have to do this,” Jones pleaded. “If it’s money, I have money.”
Cousins took Jones inside and shot her, too, in the back of the skull. She fell face-down on top of Turrentine.
After finding Cousins, 48, guilty of capital murder two weeks ago, a jury in Criminal District Court No. 3 in Tarrant County on Thursday morning rejected the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office preferred penalty: a death sentence.
It was the first death penalty capital murder case in Tarrant County to go to trial this year. Juries in the county sent three men to death row last year.
The Cousins jury was instructed to consider two options: life in prison without eligibility for parole or the death penalty. Jurors weighed whether the state proved beyond a reasonable doubt that it is probable that in the future Cousins would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society. At least 10 of 12 jurors found that the state did not, resulting in the sentence of life without parole.
The Cousins trial was the first time a jury in Tarrant County returned a life in prison verdict in a case in which the district attorney’s office sought the death penalty since 2022, when Timothy Huff, who was indicted in connection with the killing of a Fort Worth police criminal intelligence unit officer, went to trial. In that case, the verdict was tied to mitigating elements rather than future dangerousness.
The decision to seek the death penalty in the Cousins case was made by former District Attorney Sharen Wilson, District Attorney Phil Sorrells’ predecessor.
The Cousins jury did not reach two other questions in the punishment phase: Whether there was mitigating evidence that a juror might regard as reducing Cousins’ moral blameworthiness that would warrant a sentence of life in prison without parole and whether Cousins actually caused the victims’ deaths.
The jury of seven women and five men deliberated on punishment for about four and a half hours over two days. The jurors were not sequestered.
Cousins did not testify at either trial phase.
Cousins’ mother drank a half bottle of gin daily while she was pregnant with him, a man with whom she often drank testified. Defense experts concluded Cousins suffered from partial fetal alcohol syndrome and has a full-scale IQ of 75.
“Lamont’s brain was broken in utero every time she took a sip,” defense attorney Brian Salvant told the jury.
Salvant attempted in his closing to persuade the jury to resist a verdict of vengeance.
“You don’t have to kill a man to get justice,” Salvant said.
A confrontation with Turrentine over a business deal likely exploded and caused Cousins to “blow a circuit,” defense attorney Shawn Paschall theorized in his closing.
Cousins and Turrentine bought and sold used cars. Turrentine ran Bill’s Auto Sales in the 4200 block of Benbrook Highway.
The killings, prosecutors told the jury, were motivated by a bad business deal.
The trial’s central witness was Vandermeer, who testified he drove Cousins, Turrentine and Jones to Palo Pinto County.
Prosecutor Lloyd Whelchel told the jury that Vandermeer, who is also under indictment on capital murder in the case, planned to accept the state’s offer of 45 years in prison in exchange for his guilty plea.
Turrentine had purchased a Dodge from Cousins and paid $10,000 for it, a detective learned from interviews with the victims’ relatives. Turrentine bought the vehicle for Jones, with whom he was involved in an intimate relationship. Jones decided that she did not want the Dodge, and Turrentine put it on their lot to be sold. A buyer purchased the vehicle, later discovered that it had a lien and it was repossessed. Turrentine returned to the buyer the money he or she had paid for the vehicle, leaving Turrentine at a loss.
Assistant District Attorney Dale Smith assessed in his closing argument that Cousins had not shown the mercy for the victims that Cousins’ defense attorneys were asking of the jury for him.
Known for his compelling, if somewhat bluster-filled argument to juries, Smith has a penchant for walking up to seated defendants during his closings and pointing at them for emphasis as he shouts. Smith’s argument in the Cousins trial was no different.
Smith said no one beyond Cousins was to blame for the killings.
Judge Doug Allen presided at the trial.
This story was originally published May 1, 2025 at 11:36 AM.
