Travis Hall gets 99 years for killing his wife, Julie, a beloved Hutto teacher's aide

A Georgetown man has received a 99-year prison sentence for the beating death of his wife, whose remains couldn't be found after they ended up in a trash dump, officials said.

At the beginning of his trial Tuesday, Travis Hall, 50, pleaded guilty to the murder of his 47-year-old wife, Julie Hall, on Feb. 19, 2021. A Williamson County jury in the 26th District Court sentenced him to the maximum prison term Thursday. Jurors also required him to pay a $10,000 fine, the maximum for a first-degree felony.

Travis Hall's attorney, Ryan Deck, did not respond to a request for comment about the case.

"We want to thank the jury for their service, hard work, attention and consideration of this case," said Michael Waldman, one of the prosecutors who tried the case. "Being a juror is difficult, especially in a murder case where there is graphic testimony about a person being brutally murdered."

Hall, who was a plumber at the time, beat his wife to death with a pipe wrench in their bed, Waldman said. He previously was a chiropractor in Houston, the prosecutor said. His license was revoked in 2014, public records show. Julie Hall was a special education teacher's aide in the Hutto school district.

Travis Hall dumped his wife's body at 3:44 a.m. Feb. 19 in a trash compactor at the Georgetown apartment complex where they lived and then went to Houston to meet with a prostitute in a hotel, Waldman said. He said Hall had booked the hotel before he killed his wife.

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When Hall came back from Houston two days later, "he used Julie Hall’s phone to send out messages pretending to be her from her cellphone and then sent messages from his cellphone to Julie’s cellphone pretending like he didn’t know where she was," Waldman said.

"When questioned by police and when confronted with his series of lies the Georgetown Police Department and Texas Rangers checked up on, Travis Hall continued to lie and refused to say what he did to Julie Hall and where he put her body," the prosecutor said.

During the week of Feb. 23, 2021, Travis Hall confessed to the prostitute about killing his wife and dumping her body, Waldman said. After investigators were able to identify who the prostitute was, he said, she told them what Hall had confessed to her.

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Police were then able to find video from the apartment complex that showed Hall putting his wife's body into the trash compactor, Waldman said. He said a Texas Ranger involved in the investigation was able to learn that the trash had been picked up Feb. 20, 2021, and taken to a landfill in Creedmoor owned by Texas Disposal Systems.

He said the landfill received 3,000 to 3,500 tons of trash on the day Julie Hall's body was taken there. Law enforcement officers searched for more than 24 hours but were unable to find her body, the prosecutor said.

"By the time search teams were able to coordinate the effort to try to recover the remains of Julie Hall, over 21,000 tons of trash had been dumped, compacted and scattered over a large area," Waldman said.

There had been no previous reported violence in the marriage, Waldman said, but "throughout the marriage, Travis Hall repeatedly committed adultery with prostitutes, escorts and people involved in the sex trade."

Travis Hall killed his wife one week before their 27th wedding anniversary, the prosecutor said.

"Julie Hall was a loved teacher's assistant at Howard Norman Elementary," Waldman said. "Julie worked with behavior-challenged children at the school. Ms. Hall was a loved mother, member of the Hutto ISD and member of the community."

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Georgetown man gets 99 years in wife's beating death