Supermarket News

Grocery chain H-E-B will open supermarket west of Fort Worth

One lucky North Texas town gets its own H-E-B.

Photo courtesy of H-E-B

In big big supermarket news, there's a new H-E-B grocery store coming to a North Texas town in 2019. The town is Hudson Oaks, and the store is being built on the northeast corner of US-180 and Lakeshore Drive.

Hudson Oaks is about 23 miles west of Fort Worth, and about 700 miles west of Dallas. Just kidding, that's an exaggeration, it'll just feel like 700 miles.

According to a statement, the store is still under design, and there is no specific information about it that can be shared at this time. H-E-B will share that with the community of Hudson Oaks as it becomes available. No questions about the design can be answered right now.

This will bring the total number of North Texas stores to eight: Burleson, Granbury, Cleburne, Ennis, Waxahachie, Stephenville, Corsicana, and in 2019, Hudson Oaks. If you notice, all of those towns are satellites around Fort Worth. H-E-B strongly favors the west side of the Metroplex.

The release states that the community has been asking for an H-E-B for years, and that H-E-B is delighted to respond positively to this request. You just gotta ask?

"The Hudson Oaks community has approached H-E-B about building a store for a number of years," says senior VP Jeff Thomas. "We are excited to fulfill that request for residents and look forward to adding an additional store to our network across North Texas. This location will not only provide the community with fantastic offerings, but will also bring continued growth opportunities for our H-E-B employees and add operational efficiencies to our North Texas network of stores."

Lest you conclude that all it takes to get a store is to ask for it, the release offers a clarification.

"H-E-B is also aware and thankful for the H-E-B fans in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex (DFW) that are anxiously awaiting our entry into that market," it says. "Our interest remains in evaluating the DFW market for the H-E-B format of stores, but there are no current plans to enter at this time. Central Market continues to be our primary format and growth vehicle for DFW."

Based in San Antonio, H-E-B operates more than 390 stores in Texas and Mexico.

openings supermarkets

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."