Pubdate: Mon, 03 Mar 2003
Source: San Antonio Express-News (TX)
Section: Metro and State
Copyright: 2003 San Antonio Express-News
Contact:  http://www.mysanantonio.com/expressnews/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/384

DRUG DEALER GETS DEATH ROW

HOUSTON - A drug dealer from Tennessee is headed to Texas death row for 
ordering the killing of a mall security guard who witnessed a drug deal 
gone bad.

Tarus Sales, who lived in Nashville until he was taken into custody by 
Texas authorities, was sentenced to death Saturday by a Harris County jury 
that convicted him of capital murder last month.

The jury, which spent three days last week deliberating his sentence, had 
the option of sentencing Sales to life in prison or death.

Prosecutors said Sales ordered friends William Herschel Ostine and Cheryl 
Kissentaner, both from Tennessee, to kill Tyrone Butler, 33, who witnessed 
a shootout in a Houston mall parking lot in February 2000.

Testimony during Sales' trial revealed he had been arrested 19 times since 
he turned 13.

Butler, of Houston, was fatally shot on July 21, 2000, while he was stopped 
at a Houston intersection.
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