Trial to begin for man who admitted killing couple who ran Dallas Ethiopian restaurant because they disrespected him

Abey Girma (Dallas County Sheriff's Department)

Opening statements are scheduled to begin at noon in the trial of a man accused of killing a couple after following them to the Lower Greenville Avenue home from their Ethiopian restaurant.
Abey Belette Girma is charged with capital murder in the slayings of Yayehyirad “Yared” Lemma, 40, and Yenenesh “Yenni” Desta, 31, also known as Selam.

Girma, who has confessed to the crime, automatically faces a sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted of capital murder.

Police said after the August to 2012 slayings that Gima shot the couple on their front porch because they “disrespected” him.

The couple was shot and killed just after midnight at Marquita Avenue home, across the street from the San Francisco Rose bar. Surveillance cameras from the bar show a car stopping behind Desta’s Mercedes-Benz as the couple arrived home from closing the restaurant they operated on Greenville Avenue near Forest Lane.



Witnesses told police the car fled without turning on it
s headlights after the shootings.

The couple had a toddler who had been at the home with Lemma’s mother when his parents were killed.

Police linked Girma to the crime after coworker of his told police in Goodland, Kan. that Girma intimidated him into driving to Kansas, where the co-worker escaped. The witness said Girma told him that he followed the couple and confronted Lemma on the porch.

Lemma moved to Texas from Ethiopia during the 1980s when he was in high school. He met Desta, who was also from Ethiopia, about a decade before they were killed.
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