HOUSTON (HCDAO) – A Houston man has been sentenced to life in prison without parole after being convicted by a jury of capital murder for brutally killing a woman, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg announced.
“This was not just a vicious and cruel murder, it was a premeditated and planned-out capital murder,” Ogg said. “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.”
David Spates, 61, was convicted Monday of capital murder for the death of 28-year-old Kayla Lary on June 24, 2020. Spates and Lary knew each other and were part of a group of people who used drugs together. After another man was arrested earlier that year, Spates accused Lary, a young mother, of talking to the police.
Lary was at a home in a rural area near Sheldon Lake with Spates when she was bound by the wrists and ankles, hit with a hammer and stabbed. A trash bag was used to cover her head. A witness told police that as Lary was being killed, she screamed that she just wanted to go home to be with her baby.
After the murder, Lary’s car was driven to the woods where it was abandoned and her body was dumped in the San Jacinto River. Her decomposed remains were found about 10 days later, making it difficult to determine exactly how she died.
However, after hearing from witnesses during a seven-day trial, a Harris County jury convicted Spates after deliberating for just 19 minutes.
Assistant District Attorney Kathryn Rogers prosecuted the case with ADA Megan Long. Both are chief prosecutors in the DA’s Homicide Division.
“No one deserves to die like that, and he threw her away like she was a piece of trash,” Rogers said. “We are thankful to the jurors who listened to the facts of this horrible case and did the right thing.”
