Source: Houston Chronicle
By: Company Press Release
(KILLEEN, TX) — A Fort Hood soldier suspected in the Thanksgiving weekend slayings of four people, including three Teazers Gentlemen’s Club employees, told police he videotaped two of the killings while another man did the shooting, according to court documents released today.
Timothy D. Payne, a private with the 4th Infantry Division, and Richard L. Tabler, a former customer at Teazers, were arraigned Tuesday on capital murder charges and ordered held on $4 million bond, Bell County District Attorney Henry Garza said.
Neither Smith nor Payne had attorneys by Tuesday afternoon, a court clerk said.
According to the arrest warrant affidavits, Payne, 18, and Tabler, 25, used a video camera to capture Tabler shooting the strip club’s manager, Mohamed-Amine Rahmouni, 25, and his friend, Haitham Frank Zayed, 28, on Nov. 26. Two days later, two female dancers were fatally shot.
It was not immediately clear if investigators had seen the videotaped slayings. Bell County Sheriff Dan Smith referred calls to Garza, who declined comment on the evidence in the case.
Smith said Monday that authorities believe the victims were part of a revenge plot hatched by Tabler after he was asked to stop visiting the club. Smith said Tabler drew up a "hit list" of as many as nine more targets.
Although Tabler told police he had been fired from a job at the club, manager Scott Davis told the Associated Press on Tuesday that Tabler never worked at Teazers. He said Tabler had been a regular customer for a couple of months until he was asked to leave about three weeks ago.
He said nothing major prompted Tabler’s ouster, but Tabler liked to tell people he worked security at the club and he tried to develop relationships with several of the dancers by doing favors for them outside of their work.
"The guy gave you the creeps," Davis said. "He was creating his own fantasy world."
He said Tabler’s confrontation with Rahmouni likely happened sometime last week outside the club.
Rahmouni, a native of Morocco, was popular but sometimes clashed with people, Davis said.
