Death Records Now

Google the person’s name and the word "obituaries." If there was an obituary, then you’ll likely find a link to it. You can also try looking them up in the Social Security Death Index (address below), though if they died this year, it’s probably a little early for it to have been reported.

At least this is a start.
References :
http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi

If you need to access someone’s death certificate you can do it on several ways. You can check local government’s office for death records, or you can hire a professional to find it for you. If you don’t have enough money you can still locate death records free of charge. How? Simple, all that you need is an internet connection and some free time on your hands.

You see, death records are public records and they are available to every citizen of United States. All that you need to access certain death record is to fill in the request form at the government’s office. After doing that you need to provide some form of personal identification in order to get your identity verified. And after doing this, all that you need to do is to wait for couple of days until your record is found and delivered to you. Now you see why would people rather pay fees than to wait for days for a single death record? Sometimes if your request fails to pass the verification process you’ll have to do the process all over again.
References :
http://investigatorcourse.com/

There are several ways to obtain a death record:

You can contact Texas Department of State Health Services for the record information for a minimal fee.
http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/vs/default.shtm

Or you can pay a private website for probably a slightly higher fee for the information
References :
http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/vs/default.shtm
http://publicrecords.onlinesearches.com/Texas-Vital-Statistics.htm