Day 2 Afternoon: The Friend, The Boyfriend, and The Money Trail

Day 2 of the Uriah Urick capital murder trial gave us something we don't always see: witnesses who had no reason to lie and no agenda to push. The afternoon session featured five witnesses, and each one added another layer to the state's theory. But here's the thing about building a case through circumstantial evidence and third-party observations: the picture only becomes clear when you see all the pieces together.

Let me walk you through what the jury heard.

Christian Atkins: The Accidental Safe House

Christian Atkins is 20 years old. He knew Tara King from Dickinson High School, though by his own admission they were more acquaintances than friends. He testified that he saw Tara's Instagram post saying she needed a place to stay and was fleeing an abusive grandmother. So he reached out.

That's the thing about Christian. He described himself as someone who doesn't really care about things, has a laid-back attitude, and has let multiple people crash at his apartment before. He's been homeless himself. He knows what it's like. So when two teenagers said they needed help getting away from a bad situation, he offered his spare room at his League City apartment.

What Christian didn't know is what allegedly happened at that house on 15th Street before they arrived.

He picked them up at his workplace, Energy Metals in Pearland. They came with bags, including what he described as a long gun bag shaped like it held rifles. They had a dog named Salem. They offered to pay him $500 for the night. Christian said he told them $300 was enough. He noticed they had a big stack of cash.

Over the next two days at Christian's apartment, things got strange. On Thursday, Tara and Uriah called Christian at work insisting that cops were banging on his door. He left work early, drove home, and found nobody there. He asked his neighbors. Nobody heard anything.

By Friday, the paranoia had escalated. They were blowing up his phone. They wanted him to come home immediately. They sent him a screenshot of something and then unsent it. They started offering him $1,000 to drive them to Wyoming or Idaho. They were watching for cops. They were tracking any movement outside.

When Christian got home Friday evening, they were gone. They left behind clothes, hair dye, cut hair in the sink, two firearms in the closet, and their dog.

Christian saw the news the next morning and immediately called the police.

WATCH THE FULL TESTIMONY Christian Atkins — Day 2, Witness #4

Terry Utton: 40 Years of Knowing This Family

Terry Utton had known Tammy King for over 40 years. He was married to Tammy's late husband's sister. After both of their spouses passed, Terry and Tammy started a romantic relationship in late 2024.

Terry is a retired oil refinery worker and former firefighter in Galveston County. He built a house in San Leon in 2003. He spent significant time at Tammy's home in Bay Cliff in the months before her death.

He knew Tara her entire life. He knew Uriah, who he called Percy, for about five or six months before Tammy died. He said he thought Uriah was a good kid. One time Uriah raised his voice with Tammy and Terry shut it down. There were no further incidents that he witnessed.

Terry testified that Tammy and Tara had a normal grandmother-granddaughter relationship. Yes, they argued. It was usually about Tara not wanting to go to school or about Uriah. Tammy had a 10 PM curfew rule: Uriah had to leave by 10 PM. Terry said sometimes he'd advocate for the kids, ask Tammy to give them another hour.

But here's what Terry said he never saw: Tammy being physically aggressive with Tara. Never. Not once in the entire time he knew them. When asked if it would surprise him to learn that Tara told people her grandmother was abusive, he said yes.

Tuesday, February 4th was the last time Terry saw Tammy alive. They sat on the front porch. Tara came out to grab the Taco Bell that had been delivered. Everything seemed normal. Terry left, texted Tammy goodnight, and went home.

Wednesday morning, Terry and Tammy texted. Tammy was frustrated because Tara wouldn't get up for school. That was the last time Terry heard from Tammy in a way that felt normal.

By Wednesday evening, the texts from Tammy's phone became sparse, short, and off. By Thursday night, Terry's messages weren't going through at all. He went to the house. He called 911. And because there wasn't enough exigent circumstance for deputies to enter the home, Terry broke in through a bathroom window himself, with Tammy's son's permission.

Terry was a firefighter. He knew the smell. He said he knew what had happened before he got past the bathroom.

WATCH THE FULL TESTIMONY Terry Utton — Day 2, Witness #5

The Crime Scene

Investigator Larry Crow, a 36-year veteran with a master peace officer license and extensive crime scene experience, processed parts of the scene. He documented Tara's bedroom specifically.

Inside that room: bottles of what was later confirmed to be urine under a desk. Old food. Roaches. A cell phone. Multiple pillows, one with what appeared to be blood on it. A makeshift bed made of blankets under the desk. The room was, in Crow's word, unkempt. The living room looked ransacked. Gun safes were open and appeared empty. A loaded .22 magazine was found in the hallway.

This wasn't a home invasion from outside. The scene looked like someone who lived there went through it.

WATCH THE FULL TESTIMONY Investigator Larry Crow — Day 2, Witness #6

Detective Ashton Scott: Following the Money

This is where things got technical, and it's where the state laid some of its most important groundwork.

Detective Ashton Scott has spent years as a fraud investigator, both in law enforcement and in the private sector. She holds membership in the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners. When the Galveston County Sheriff's Office realized there might be financial crimes tied to this case, they put her on it.

She subpoenaed records from Cash App, Wells Fargo, and Chase Bank.

What she found tells a story.

Tammy King had a Cash App account linked to her Wells Fargo bank account. The records show that for most of January and early February, Tammy was sending Tara small amounts of money. $20 here. $55 there. Normal transactions between a grandmother and granddaughter. The requests came from Tara's account, Tammy approved them, and money moved.

Then came February 5th.

Starting around 2 PM Central time on February 5th, a cluster of transactions began. Rapid-fire. Request after request from Tara's Cash App account to Tammy's. Some went through: $100, $200, $300, $500. Some failed because they exceeded Cash App's limits.

At the same time, someone was moving money from Tammy's Wells Fargo account into her Cash App account. $500 transfers. $600 transfers. There were failed attempts to move $5,000 and $20,000 at once.

And here's the piece that connects: someone tried to link a new bank account to Tammy's Cash App. A Chase Bank debit card. The first two attempts failed with an error flagging suspected fraud, likely because the names didn't match. But a third attempt, linking the actual Chase bank account number, succeeded.

Detective Scott subpoenaed that Chase account number. It came back to Uriah Urick.

Someone linked Uriah's Chase bank account to Tammy King's Cash App on February 5th, around 6 PM Central time. Then someone tried to cash out $3,553 from Tammy's Cash App, which got held up by Cash App's fraud detection systems.

The state's theory is clear: Tammy King was already dead when these transactions were happening, and someone was draining her accounts as fast as the apps would allow.

WATCH THE FULL TESTIMONY Detective Ashton Scott — Day 2, Witness #7

Detective Brian Bernard: Tying It Together

Detective Bernard is assigned to Major Crimes. He got called to the scene just after midnight and was the one who drove to Christian Atkins' apartment in League City after getting tips from the Facebook post the sheriff's office put out.

He processed Christian's apartment with consent. He found the clothes, the hair dye, the hair, the guns. He visited Shauna Bridgen, Uriah's mother, and Joshua Bridgen, his stepfather. He saw the Cash App screenshot showing money moving through Uriah's account.

When Bernard walked through Tammy's home, he described the living room as looking like it had been burglarized. Gun safes were open. Empty. There was a bag of dog food cut open and left on the floor with water bowls set out, but no dog. Like someone was leaving and making sure the dog could eat while they were gone.

Tammy was in her bedroom, laying across the bed, covered with sheets and blankets piled unnaturally around her head. She was nude. The medical examiner investigator located a gunshot wound to the left side of her head near her ear.

WATCH THE FULL TESTIMONY Detective Brian Bernard — Day 2, Witness #8

What We're Watching

This case is built on circumstantial evidence, witness observations, and digital records. The state hasn't put a gun in anyone's hand yet. They haven't played the Instagram messages that the prosecutor referenced in opening statements, the ones allegedly showing Uriah asking Tara if he could kill her grandmother. We haven't heard from Travis Hodges, the alleged drug dealer who drove them to Laredo and who the state says received the murder weapon from Uriah.

But what the state did today was establish the framework. They showed the jury that money was moving out of a dead woman's accounts hours after she was likely killed. They showed that Uriah Urick's bank account was linked to those transfers. They showed that two teenagers fled with guns, cash, and a story about an abusive grandmother that the people who knew the family don't believe.

The defense asked very few questions today. They're saving their fire. And they should, because the real confrontation in this case will come when those Instagram messages are published and when Travis Hodges takes the stand.

Uriah Urick is presumed innocent. The state has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed capital murder. Today was about building blocks, not the knockout punch.

But those building blocks are stacking up.