A Bexar County jury convicted R.C. Curtis III of murdering his wife’s grandmother, Paula Boyd, in a retrial.
SAN ANTONIO — Nearly a decade after the killing of a San Antonio woman reported missing when she didn’t show up to work at H-E-B, a man is heading to prison after being convicted of her murder.
A Bexar County jury found R.C. Curtis III guilty of capital murder Friday, capping a dayslong retrial of the 40-year-old suspect when proceedings ended in a mistrial in 2021, according to the district attorney’s office. It’s the culmination of a yearslong pursuit of justice for friends and family of 75-year-old Paula Boyd, whose body was found by workers on Oct. 21, 2015, “nude and beaten in her home.”
Curtis was arrested on murder charges in March 2016, having previously been taken into custody when authorities said he tried and failed to withdraw $20 from a convenience story with Boyd’s credit cards.
The jury convicted Curtis of having beaten and sexually assaulted Boyd, whose family said she worked in the H-E-B deli department for more than 20 years. She was the grandmother of Curtis’ wife.
“During the investigation, police were able to link Curtis to the crime through evidence from the use of Boyd’s bank cards on the day of and the days following the murder,” the DA’s office said in a statement.
After his conviction Friday, Curtis was subsequently sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, a punishment that District Attorney Joe Gonzales said “confirms that our legal system will stand strong against the most heinous and violent crimes.”