Flying Solo

How many Dallas-Fort Worth millennials live alone? Less than you'd think.

Not too many young people in Dallas live alone.

Photo courtesy of Leaseful

Dallas-Fort Worth is a playground for millennials, with great job opportunities and affordable living. But are they getting the independence they crave?

Zillow recently analyzed which 10 metro areas have the largest concentrations of millennials living alone, and DFW isn't one of them.

A little less than 12 percent of local millennials live solo, compared to a surprising 19 percent who live with their parents. Those who live alone have a median salary of $43,000 and can afford about 6 percent of available homes.

The story is different in Austin, which has one of the highest percentages of millennials living alone, 13.4 percent, but it's a stretch. Millennials flying solo in Austin have a median salary of $40,000 and can afford only 1.5 percent of available homes. Compare that to Oklahoma City, where the 13.3 percent of millennials live alone and can afford more than 20 percent of homes.

The highest concentration of independent young people is in Richmond, Virginia (15 percent). Pittsburgh (14.3 percent) and Buffalo, New York (14.2 percent) round out the top three.

Elsewhere in Texas, millennials are less independent than DFW and Austin. In San Antonio 10.7 percent of millennials live alone; in Houston, the figure is 10.6 percent.

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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."