Keith Thurmond was executed by the State of Texas for the murders of his estranged wife and her boyfriend. According to court documents Keith Thurmond would shoot and kill Sharon Anne Thurmond, and her boyfriend, Guy Sean Fernandes in front of their eight year old child. Keith Thurmond would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Keith Thurmond would be executed by lethal injection on March 12 2012
Keith Thurmond More News
Unlike the two people he gunned down as they fled in terror for their lives on Sept. 25, 2001, Keith Steven Thurmond died peacefully at 6:22 p.m. March 7 by lethal injection in Huntsville.
Thurmond was executed for the capital murders of his estranged wife, Sharon Anne Thurmond, and her boyfriend, Guy Sean Fernandes, as the Thurmonds’ 8-year-old son watched.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied a last-minute appeal for a stay of execution about an hour before the scheduled execution time of 6 p.m. Moments after the lethal cocktail started flowing through his veins, Thurmond proclaimed his innocence.
“All I want to say is I’m innocent. I didn’t kill my wife. Jack Leary shot my wife, then her dope dealer Guy Fernandes,” Thurmond said. “Don’t hold it against me, Bill.”
Then with his voice rising and quavering, “I swear to God I didn’t kill her,” he said.
He lowered his voice to a more resigned tone to say finally, “Go ahead and finish it off. You can taste it.”
Thurmond then began gasping for air and fell silent. Several minutes later, he was pronounced dead.
None of Thurmond’s family members were present to watch his final moments; his only witnesses were activists opposing the death penalty.
Three members of Sharon Thurmond’s family – her brother and two nieces – witnessed the execution, as did the father, brother and sister of Guy Fernandes. The family members declined to speak with the media afterward.
But Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Jim Prewitt, who successfully convicted Thurmond in 2002 and convinced jurors to sentence Thurmond to death, recounted the brutality of the murders in a statement.
“… it is my hope that the public takes the time to recognize the brutal nature of this crime, the impact domestic violence has in our communities and to remember the two victims who died at the hands of the defendant, Sharon Thurmond and Guy Fernandez (sic),” Prewitt stated in a release. “Our thoughts and prayers remain with the families … as well as our hope that tonight’s event will bring them some closure.”
Enraged by a protective order his wife had sought that was issued by a Montgomery County judge and served to him Sept. 25, 2001, Keith Thurmond grabbed a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun and headed across the street from his Magnolia-area house, just as Sharon Thurmond, Fernandes and the Thurmonds’ son were returning to Fernandes’ home.
The child later described to officers how he watched his father, with the gun, chase his mother around the yard while Fernandes ran into his home. The boy told investigators he saw his father shoot his mother “a couple of times and … then ran into Guy’s mobile home with the gun,” according to affidavits.
The boy then said he heard several shots, and he then ran to his house across the street.
As officers with the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office were on their way to respond to a domestic disturbance call, Thurmond returned to his home and barricaded himself inside with his son. He released the boy a short time later and peacefully surrendered to police after holding them at bay for nearly two hours.
Sharon Thurmond had sought another protective order in 1998 against her husband, an air-conditioning technician and Kentucky native who had a ninth-grade education.
During Thurmond’s trial, a former girlfriend testified that he was violent and had raped her, and another girlfriend also testified about similar abuse.
While Thurmond was held in the Montgomery County Jail, he threatened a female detention officer, who testified that Thurmond threatened to snap her neck.
He also told the female detention officer, “What are they going to do? Kill me twice?”
