Jury convicts Granby man in Texas strip club murders

A Bell County, Texas, jury found Timothy Doan Payne, Granby, a 2004 graduate of East Newton High School guilty Thursday on two counts of first degree murder:

While the jury was out, deliberations became so heated within the jury chambers that voices could be heard inside the courtroom. Bell County sheriff's deputies cleared the courtroom so that the content of those discussions could remain private.

Payne, a former soldier at Fort Hood, was charged with capital murder in the Nov. 26, 2004, deaths of Mohammed-Amine Rahmouni, 28, and Haitham Zayed, 25, and faces an automatic life sentence.

Payne's Granby background was employed by his attorney in an attempt to sway the jury:

"He's a farm boy from Missouri," Lee said. "He had graduated in May and found himself in Fort Hood in September. His own father was murdered. He had every reason in the world not to do it. There is no way that my client ever acted with the intent to aid in the commission of capital murder. This is a bad case."

Defense attorney Paul LePak painted a picture of Tabler as a criminal mastermind who planned every element of the operation, and attempted to pin the murders on Payne, who was young and naive.

"This is the benchmark, this kind of case. There are no greater stakes than capital murder," he said. "I'm glad KPD did such a good job on this case because there would be a lot more people dead. And it would have been Richard Tabler that killed them."

McWilliams argued that the charge sheet detailing the crime provided multiple avenues for the jury in the event they found Payne guilty. He said Payne made the decision to associate himself with Tabler, and that decision led to a chain of events that left two men dead.

McWilliams said Payne's guilt was clear. He used Payne's own testimony, namely the search for Rahmouni, to show that Payne helped Tabler bring the victims together.