Man Condemned for Smith County Slaying Loses Appeal

HOUSTON (AP/Staff) – A man sent to death row for torturing and drowning a Tyler woman in his bathtub and then stuffing her body into a barrel and dumping it in a ravine has lost an appeal before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The court Wednesday rejected an appeal from Troy Clark, 46, calling it an abuse of the writ process, without considering the appeal’s merits. Clark was condemned for the May 1998 slaying of a former roommate, 20-year-old Christina Muse. Evidence showed Muse was hit with a stun gun, beaten with a board, bound with duct tape and kept in a closet before she was drowned at Clark’s Tyler home. Records indicate Clark and a friend were using and selling methamphetamine and worried she would snitch on them.