NEW BOSTON, Texas: A Bowie County jury returned a guilty verdict Thursday afternoon for a 23-year-old Texarkana man who shot another at close range during an apparent robbery attempt at a local gas station earlier this year.
Tyvon Montrel Gullatt will return to court Friday morning for the punishment phase of his trial. The jury of two men and 10 women will hear testimony Friday concerning what punishment Gullatt should receive for killing Carlos Clark, 25, in a car parked at the Chevron gas station on State Line Avenue in Texarkana, Texas, in the early hours of Feb. 10.
Assistant District Attorneys Kelley Crisp and Lauren Richards argued in closing remarks Thursday that Gullatt had his eye on the large amount of cash Clark had in his pocket while playing a dice game earlier in the night at the Sugar Shack. The prosecutors argued that Gullatt followed the Nissan Sentra that Clark was riding in with his friend, Carlos Battle, to the gas station.
Gullatt got in the back seat of the car and pulled out a pistol. Clark was shot in the lower back at such close range that the gun left a muzzle print, Crisp said. Clark and Battle were able to flee the car but Clark died of his wound.
Shortly after the shooting a 911 call was received by emergency dispatchers from Gullatt, Investigator Scott Sartor testified. The call was played for the jury Thursday. Gullatt asks the operator to send an officer to his home on Main Street in Texarkana, Texas, where he lived with family members before telling the operator that someone tried to rob him at the gas station after waving him over to their car.
Sartor and others testified that a 9 mm pistol recovered from Gullatt’s home the night of the shooting was later determined to be the murder weapon. Gullatt is facing five to 99 years or life in prison.
