Store Closures

2 Sears stores in Dallas-Fort Worth will close in spring 2019

Sears has been around since 1893.

Courtesy photo

There's more sad news for Sears, with a slew of stores set to close by spring 2019, including two in Dallas-Fort Worth.

On December 28, the company issued a list of 80 stores that will shut down, including 43 Sears stores and 37 Kmart stores.

The company has been in bankruptcy proceedings since October 2018.

Seven of those stores are in Texas:

201 S. Plano Rd., Richardson
851 N. Central Expy., Plano
4310 Buffalo Gap Rd., Abilene
6001 W. Waco Dr., Waco
7701 1-40 W. Ste. 400, Amarillo
2100 SW S. Young Dr., Killeen
3100 Hwy. 365, Port Arthur

Sears at Fort Worth's Ridgmar Mall closed in 2018. Three other Tarrant County stores — at Fort Worth's Hulen Mall, Northeast Mall in Hurst, and The Parks Mall at Arlington — remain open.

Many of the stores closing have Sears Auto Centers, which will close, as well; those are expected to close in January.

Nearly 200 Sears stores are still open in Texas, including Sears Outlet Centers. In DFW, there are also stores in South Dallas, Frisco, Mesquite, and Irving.

Sears has been in Chapter 11 since October 2018. December 28 was the deadline for bidders to buy the company, but no bidders emerged.

Sears avoided liquidation entirely when chairman Ed Lampert made a last-minute bid for for 435 Sears stores. Lampert is a hedge-fund manager and billionaire who appointed himself chairman and CEO of the company. When he joined the company in 2005, there were more than 3,500 locations. He's stepping down as chief executive.

These 80 stores are the latest in a series of closures, including 142 stores when Sears filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in October, followed by another 40 in November. Two stores in Austin will close next week.

There's a silver lining for bargain shoppers: Liquidation sales at the closing stores are already underway.

closings

Death Penalty

Tarrant County man gets death for murder of convenience store owner

Tarrant County Sheriff's Office

Christopher Turner

A man received the death penalty for his 2020 cold-blooded execution of a convenience store owner.

According to a release from the office of Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney Phil Sorrells, a Tarrant County jury sentenced Christopher Karon Turner, 48, to death on November 20 for executing convenience store owner Anwar Ali during a robbery. Tarrant County Assistant District Attorneys Charles Boulware and Allenna Bangs represented the state.

On March 27, 2020, at around 6:15 am, Turner, a convicted felon, wore a surgical mask and a glove and entered the Super Big Country Mart in an unincorporated area of Tarrant County south of Fort Worth. There, he held a gun to the back of Anwar Ali, the 62-year-old store owner, and walked him through the store.

Ali did everything Turner demanded, including opening the cash register to give him money. And yet Turner forced Ali into the bathroom and onto his knees, and shot him in the neck. Ali was discovered, dead in the bathroom, about an hour later.

Turner fled the store in Ali's Toyota minivan with the money from the register and Ali's wallet. In the van, he found more than $50,000 cash in a black bag. Over the next few days, Turner went on a shopping spree, buying cars, jewelry, drugs, clothes, and more. He and others used cash and a credit card that belonged to Ali.

Turner fled to Colorado where U.S. Marshals arrested him. On his body they found a firearm which was determined to be the murder weapon.

"This was a premeditated, cold-blooded murder," Boulware told the jury. "From the moment he was charged with this crime, he has tried to escape responsibility."

Bangs noted that before this trial began, Turner obtained the names of jurors and their telephone numbers, and gave them to an inmate charged with murder. At the trial on November 20, as Bangs addressed the jury, Turner tried to hold up a sign to the jury but was handcuffed by Sheriff's deputies who removed him from the courtroom, while he yelled out "she lied."

Ali came to the United States from Pakistan decades ago to pursue the American dream. Ali's son, Hussein, spoke in the courtroom after the death penalty was announced. "Thank you for giving us justice," Ali said. "I hope there are no more devils like this person."