Michael Evans was executed by the State of Texas for a double murder. According to court documents Michael Evans and Earl Stanley would rob a couple and in the process shoot and kill them. Michael Evans would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Earl Stanley would receive multiple life sentences. Michael Evans would be executed by lethal injection on December 4 1986
Michael Evans More News
Former mechanic Michael Wayne Evans was executed early today for fatally shooting a church pianist and slashing her face with a carpet knife in a $40 robbery while she prayed, ‘God forgive him.’
Evans, the ninth Texas inmate put to death this year, prayed for his own salvation with the encouragement of a prison chaplain moments before the lethal injection was administered.
‘I just want to say that I’m sorry for what I done, and that I pray that I’m forgiven,’ he said, pausing briefly.
‘I don’t hold nothing against no one at all. Everyone done treated me pretty well. I know this is not easy. I’m sorry.’
Evans then closed his eyes and lay quietly on the gurney. He was pronounced dead by injection at 12:21 a.m.
Evans, 30, lost his final bid for a stay of execution about eight hours earlier when the Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote, refused to intervene. Earlier Wednesday, a federal judge in Dallas and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans also refused to block the execution.
The condemned man’s attorney had argued that the former mechanic should not be executed because he was insane
Evans spent most of Wednesday sleeping and responded only with ‘OK’ when told courts had denied his requests for a stay.
He spoke by telephone with his mother, his attorney and a friend in the final four hours before his death, but he requested no personal witnesses for his execution. He also refused a last meal.
Evans was condemned for the June 28, 1977, slaying of Elvira Guerrero, 36, a pianist for the Second Mexican Baptist Church in Dallas.
Evans told police in a confession that Guerrero prayed, ‘God help him, God help him, God forgive him,’ while he slashed her face from chin to forehead with a carpet knife after stealing $40 in church collections and shooting her.
He later recanted the confession.
Slain with Guerrero was and her fiance, Mario Garza, 28. The couple were accosted by two men and kidnapped shortly after leaving a Sunday night church service and driven to southern Dallas County where they were shot to death and their throats slashed.
Evans and a companion, Earl Stanley Smith, both were charged with capital murder in the slayings. Smith pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.
A state appeals court overturned Evans’ original capital murder conviction in August 1980 because of improper jury selection. He was convicted a second time on Oct. 8, 1981.
https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/12/04/Evans-executed-for-murder-of-church-pianist/2147534056400/