Execution Report: Troy Farris

Troy Dale Farris, 36, was executed by lethal injection on 13 January 1999 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of a sheriff's deputy during a drug deal.

On Saturday, 4 December 1983, Tarrant County sheriff's deputy Clark Rosenbalm, 27 was killed on a road near Saginaw, northwest of Fort Worth. He had been shot twice at close range with a .357 Magnum weapon. His protective vest stopped one of the gunshots, but the other entered under his arm and tore through his lungs and heart. Passersby found his body lying on the road near his patrol car.

About a year later, an informant told police that a man at a party told him about the killing. This information led to the arrest of Farris, Vance Nation, and Charles Lowder, all of whom were 21 on the night of the deputy's murder.

Lowder was given immunity. He identified Farris as the shooter. Farris's former brother-in-law, Jimmy Daniels, also testified that Farris confessed to him that he killed the officer. Trial testimony indicated that Deputy Rosenbalm happened upon the trio during the middle of a drug deal in which Farris was selling methamphetamine to Lowder and Nation, who paid him in marijuana.

Farris had no prior felony convictions, but according to the prosecution, he once tried out a new gun by shooting a buffalo at a nature preserve and had a reputation as a violent person.

Vance Nation was convicted of marijuana possession and sentenced to seven years' probation.

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