Ex-UAPB student could get death penalty

DALLAS — A former University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff student who once aspired to become a rapper faces the possibility of the death penalty for his capital murder conviction in the shooting deaths of three people at a Dallas drug house.

The penalty phase opens today in the trial of Justin Pharez Smith, 24, in which prosecutors will present evidence in their bid for a death sentence.

Killed in the August 2014 shooting rampage were Tyteanna Brown, 21; Kimberly Montgomery, 36; and Demarcus Walton, 37.

Smith also shot a woman in the face, who played dead, and hit a man with his car while making his getaway. Both survived to testify against him.

Smith was raised by his grandparents, regularly attended church and was involved in a mentorship program at UAPB when his life took a profound change, The Dallas Morning News reported. Prosecutors said he befriended Walton and regularly visited the drug house, where Walton supplied him with drugs to sell in Arkansas.

“He thought he’d come to Dallas on the dope game,” prosecutor Kobby Warren said, but that Smith “was a terrible drug dealer.”

Warren said Smith was still broke after trying to sell the drugs, but he knew there was plenty of cash at Walton’s house.

“He’s figured out what he really wants to be, and it ain’t a schoolboy,” said Edwin King, another prosecutor.