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Donnie Roberts Texas Execution

Donnie Roberts was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of a woman. According to court documents Donnie Roberts would shoot and kill the victim Vickie Bowen, before stealing a number of items from her home. Donnie Roberts would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Donnie Roberts would be executed by lethal injection on October 31 2012

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Texas Donnie Lee Roberts, convicted in his girlfriend’s 2003 slaying in Texas, was executed Wednesday for fatally shooting the woman and taking items from her home to sell or trade to support his drug habit.

Roberts, 41, became the 12th inmate to be put to death this year in the nation’s most active capital punishment state. He was given a lethal injection for the killing of Vicki Bowen at her East Texas home.

“I’m really sorry. I never meant to cause you all so much pain,” Roberts said to Bowen’s father, who was seated in a chair close to a glass window in the death chamber viewing area. “I hope you can go on with your life.

“I loved your daughter. I hope to God he lets me see her in heaven so I can apologize to her and see her and tell her.”

Roberts also asked two of his friends who watched through another window to tell his own daughter he loved her.

He repeated that he was sorry and took several deep breaths as the lethal dose of pentobarbital began taking effect. He snored briefly before slipping into unconsciousness, and was pronounced dead 23 minutes later.

Bowen’s relatives, including some who sat on the floor where they were gathered as Roberts was put to death, declined to speak with reporters after the execution.

Roberts’ punishment came after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review his case earlier this week, and no additional appeals were filed to try to block the lethal injection.

At the time of his arrest for the October 2003 slaying of the 44-year-old Bowen, Roberts had violated his probation for a robbery conviction in Louisiana by fleeing to Texas after dropping out of a drug treatment program.

Authorities said he apparently met Bowen, a dental assistant, at a bar and moved in with her at her Lake Livingston home, about 75 miles northeast of Houston. Their relationship soured because Roberts wasn’t working and was abusing drugs and alcohol, investigators said, and he shot Bowen after she refused his demand for money.

Roberts was arrested at a suspected crack house in the town of Livingston when a truck missing from Bowen’s home was spotted there the same day Bowen’s body was discovered.

“He was cooperative and confessed several times,” District Attorney Lee Hon said. “He was saying he wanted the death penalty.”

Roberts told authorities he made several trips from the house where Bowen was shot, collecting property that he took into town to sell and trade for crack.

He also surprised detectives by confessing to the shotgun death of a man that happened a decade earlier in Natchitoches Parish, La. Louisiana authorities initially believed the victim, Al Crow, had died of asphyxiation in a fire at the camper trailer where he was living but reopened the case following Roberts’ disclosure, found shotgun pellets and determined it was a homicide.

Roberts was charged with murder but not tried for Crow’s death.

Stephen Taylor, one of Roberts’ lawyers at his Texas capital murder trial, said the confessions complicated his trial defense.

“It’s almost like somebody saying he was a serial killer, that he’s killed before and he killed again,” Taylor said. “It’s one thing to say you have the right to remain silent. Use it!

“It’s always sad for someone to lose his life, especially for something so stupid.”

Bowen didn’t show up for work on Oct. 16, 2003, and a co-worker who went to check on her found her body wrapped in a blanket and lying in a pool of blood. A medical examiner determined Bowen was killed with two gunshots to her head.

Roberts took the witness stand and tried to blame Bowen for the gunfire, saying he was acting in self-defense by grabbing a .22-caliber rifle after seeing her reach down inside a couch to locate a pistol that was kept there.

Evidence at trial showed Roberts had a record for battery while being held in jail in Fulton County, Ga., that he’d threatened his wife to give him money for drugs, and that he warned there would be another killing if he didn’t get a single-person cell in Polk County when he was jailed for Bowen’s murder.

His robbery conviction in Louisiana was for a Mother’s Day 2001 convenience store holdup in Baton Rouge, La., where the knife-wielding Roberts threatened to slice the throat of the female clerk.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice Polunsky Unit, where the state’s male death row is housed, had been Roberts’ home since his capital murder conviction in 2004. The prison is just outside Livingston and not far from where Bowen was killed.

Earlier Wednesday, Roberts was moved about 45 miles west to the Huntsville Unit, the prison where the execution was carried out.

Three more Texas prisoners are set to die in November, including one next week

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donnie-lee-roberts-executed-in-texas-for-killing-girlfriend-vicki-bowen-in-2003/

Bobby Hines Texas Execution

Bobby Hines was executed by the State of Texas for the sexual assault and murder of a woman. According to court documents Bobby Hines would sexually assault and murder a woman who lived in the same building as him. Bobby Hines would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Bobby Hines would be executed by lethal injection on October 25 2012

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Convicted killer Bobby Lee Hines was executed Wednesday for strangling and repeatedly stabbing a suburban Dallas woman at her apartment 21 years ago.

Hines,40,was 19 and on probation for burglary when he stabbed 26-year-old Michelle Wendy Haupt 18 times and strangled her with a cord. Haupt had moved from the Pittsburgh area to Carrollton to work at a computer company in Dallas,and Hines was staying next door with a maintenance man for her apartment complex.

Asked by a warden to make a final statement,Hines repeatedly asked for forgiveness.

“I know that I took somebody special from y’all,” he said as Haupt’s father stood a few feet away,watching through a window. “I know it wasn’t right,it was wrong. I wish I could give it back,but I know I can’t.

“I wish there was something I could do.”

He said he loved his family,believed life in prison would be a worse punishment,and then declared that he was “going home.”

As the lethal dose of pentobarbital was administered,he said he could feel it and was stopped in midsentence. He snored once,then slipped into unconsciousness. Twelve minutes later,at 6:28 p.m.,he was pronounced dead.

“It’s like a backache,it never goes away,” Harold Haupt said afterward about the pain of losing his daughter. “It’s always there.

“On the upside of this,Bobby Hines paid the ultimate price,a life for a life,and that’s the good news. The bad news is it took 21 years,a lot of taxpayer money and all he did was go to sleep. He didn’t suffer like my daughter did. He got like a forever sleeping pill.”

In the pre-dawn hours of Oct. 20,1991,a neighbor heard screaming and called police,but officers were unable to find the source. When other residents told the apartment manager later that day about screams and loud noises that sounded like a bowling ball being dropped repeatedly,they persuaded him to open Haupt’s door and found her dead.

Hines was arrested that day. Hines’ older brother,a manager at the complex,told police he suspected his brother was involved,according to court records. And witnesses said Hines had bragged about having a passkey that allowed him to enter anyone’s apartment.

Police interviewed Hines,noticed he had scratches on his face and neck,and got consent from his roommate to search the apartment. Detectives found Haupt’s blood on Hines’ clothing and several things that had belonged to her,including a distinctive gold charm she wore on a necklace.

Hines was tried and convicted in March 1992.

He initially was scheduled to die in 2003,but his execution was delayed for eight years until the courts resolved claims that he was mentally impaired and,thus,ineligible for capital punishment. He was scheduled to die in May and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review his case,but the Dallas County district attorney’s office again delayed the execution so that new DNA testing could be conducted. Those tests confirmed Hines’ guilt,and the punishment was reset.

Relatives and friends of Hines filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Tuesday against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice,top agency officials and prison wardens and “all persons involved” in Hines’ execution,contending their rights had been violated because Hines had been on death row more than two decades and that his lawyers had been misleading. A federal judge in Houston dismissed the suit Wednesday.

Last week,the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected an appeal from Hines,whose lawyer argued previous attorneys failed to investigate and show how Hines had been abused by his father.

William Hughey,who was one of Hines’ trial lawyers and is now a state district judge in East Texas,recalled Hines’ case as one “where it was clear his childhood had significant impact as to who he was and how he ended up.”

Hines,who had declined to speak with reporters,first was arrested at age 12 for auto theft and had other arrests for assault and burglary. He was on 10 years’ probation when the slaying occurred.

Hines’ execution was the 11th this year in Texas. Another is set for next week

https://indianexpress.com/article/news-archive/print/texas-executes-convicted-killer-bobby-lee-hines-for-1991-slaying/

Jonathan Green Texas Execution

Jonathan Green was executed by the State of Texas for the kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of a twelve year old girl. According to court documents Jonathan Green would kidnap Christina Neal, who would later be sexually assaulted and murdered. The body of the 12 year old girl would be found at Jonathan Green home a month later. Jonathan Green would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Jonathan Green would be executed by lethal injection on October 11 2012

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A Texas man whose lawyers argued was mentally ill and incompetent for execution was put to death Wednesday evening for killing a 12-year-old girl more than a decade ago.

Jonathan Green, 44, received lethal injection after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected last-day appeals to spare him. A judge earlier this week stopped the punishment, but an appeals court overturned the reprieve.

Asked by the warden if he had a statement from the death chamber gurney, Green shook his head and replied, “No.”

But seconds later he changed his mind, saying: “I’m an innocent man. I never killed anyone. Y’all are killing an innocent man.”

He then looked down and said his left arm, where one of the needles carrying the lethal drug was inserted, and said, “It’s hurting me bad.” But almost immediately he began snoring loudly. The sounds stopped after about six breaths.

Green was pronounced dead 18 minutes later at 10:45 p.m.

Green was condemned for the abduction, rape and strangling of Christina Neal, whose body was found at his home in 2000 about a month after she was reported missing. Her family lived across a highway from Green in Dobbin, about 45 miles northwest of Houston.

Green’s lethal injection is the 10th this year in Texas and the first of four scheduled for this month in the nation’s most active death penalty state.

Green’s attorneys argued his hallucinations made him ineligible for the death penalty and said a state competency hearing for him two years ago was unfair.

That led to a reprieve from a federal district judge in Houston. But the Texas attorney general’s office persuaded the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn that ruling and lift the stay of execution late Tuesday

Green’s lawyer, James Rytting, said his client hallucinated about the “ongoing spiritual warfare between two sets of voices representing good and evil.”

The appeals court found the procedures at Green’s competency hearing were not improper, that no Supreme Court precedents were violated and that it was reasonable to find Green competent for the death penalty.

Green told a psychiatrist who examined him before the competency hearing that he didn’t and couldn’t have killed Christina, that false evidence was used against him and that he understood a murder conviction could result in him receiving an injection that would kill him

Supreme Court guidance says mental illness can’t disqualify someone from execution if they understand the sentence and reasons for the punishment, the state lawyers argued.

Green had declined to speak with reporters as his execution date neared.

Investigators questioned Green at least twice in the days following Christina’s disappearance 12 years ago. His wallet was found in some woods near clothing and jewelry that belonged to Christina, but authorities found nothing else of significance at the time. A few weeks later, a tip from a neighbor about an unusually large burn pile behind his ramshackle home brought them back again.

While Green had been cooperative in the past, he grew testy and ordered them off his property when an FBI agent looking at the fire site detected the smell of a decaying body and inserted a metal probe into a patch of disturbed earth. They returned hours later with a search warrant and a dog trained to detect human remains.

The dog led officers to the girl’s body, stuffed inside a laundry bag in the home and wedged into a corner behind a piece of furniture. Green contended someone else had placed the body there and that he was being set up.

Evidence at his trial indicated he had tried to burn the body, buried it in a shallow grave, then removed it when detectives left to obtain the search warrant. DNA from her remains tied him to the slaying. A carpet fiber from her panties found in the woods was traced to a carpet in his home

Two years ago, Green came within about four hours of execution before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stopped the punishment amid similar arguments he was too delusional and too mentally ill to be put to death.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/10/11/texas-execution/1626179/

Cleve Foster Texas Execution

Cleve Foster was executed by the State of Texas for the sexual assault and murder of a woman. According to court documents Cleve Foster and Sheldon Ward would kidnap, sexually assault and murder the woman. Both Cleve Foster and Sheldon Ward would be convicted and sentenced to death. Sheldon Ward would die from a brain tumor in 2010. Sheldon Ward would be executed by lethal injection on September 25 2012

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A former Army recruiter failed to win a fourth reprieve from the U.S. Supreme Court and was executed Tuesday evening in Texas for participating in the shooting death of a woman he and a buddy met 10 years ago at a bar.

Cleve Foster was pronounced dead at 6:43 p.m. CDT, 25 minutes after his lethal injection began and two hours after the high court refused to postpone his punishment. Three times last year the justices stopped his scheduled punishment, once when he was moments from being led to the death chamber.

His attorneys argued he was innocent of the 2002 slaying of Nyaneur Pal, a 30-year-old immigrant from Sudan. They also said he had deficient legal help at his trial and in early stages of his appeals and argued his case deserved a closer look.

Foster, 48, also was charged but never tried for the rape-slaying a few months earlier of another woman in Fort Worth, Rachel Urnosky

In the seconds before the single lethal dose of pentobarbital began, Foster expressed love to his family and to God.

“When I close my eyes, I’ll be with the father,” he said. “God is everything. He’s my life. Tonight I’ll be with him.”

He did not proclaim innocence or admit guilt. He did turn to relatives of his two victims, saying, “I don’t know what you’re going to be feeling tonight. I pray we’ll all meet in heaven.”

As the drugs began taking effect and while he was repeatedly saying he loved his family, he began snoring, then he stopped breathing.

Three of the nine Supreme Court justices — Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor — would have stopped the punishment, the court indicated in its brief ruling.

Last year — in January, April and September — the justices did intervene and halted his execution, once only moments before he could have been led to the death chamber.

“It’s offensive to us the frivolous appeals that were thrown up at the Supreme Court last minute,” said Terry Urnosky, whose 22-year-old daughter’s death was blamed on Foster and a partner, Sheldon Ward. “One stay after another, just delaying the closure our families sought.”

Urnosky, his wife, and Pal’s uncle and aunt stood a few feet away from Foster and watched the execution through a window.

“It’s like ripping off a deep scab each time, preventing the wound from being able to start healing,” Urnosky said. “Now the wound can start closing.”

Maurie Levin, a University of Texas law professor representing Foster, argued the Supreme Court needed to block it again in light of their ruling earlier this year in an Arizona case that said an inmate who received poor legal assistance should have his case reviewed.

Foster and Ward were sentenced to die for killing Pal, who was known as Mary Pal and was seen talking with the men at a Fort Worth bar hours before her body was found in a ditch off a Tarrant County road.

“I am as certain of Foster’s guilt as I can be without having seen him do it,” Ben Leonard, who prosecuted Foster in 2004, said last week.

A gun in the motel room where Foster and Ward lived was identified as the murder weapon and was matched to Rachel Urnosky’s fatal shooting at her apartment.

“It wasn’t the violent death that both Mary and my daughter experienced,” Urnosky’s father said. “I feel it was way too easy, but it is what it is.”

Foster blamed Pal’s slaying on Ward, one of his recruits who became a close friend. Prosecutors said evidence showed Foster actively participated in her death, offered no credible explanations, lied and gave contradictory stories about his sexual activities with her.

The two were convicted separately, Ward as the triggerman and Foster under Texas’ law of parties, which makes participants equally culpable. Pal’s blood and tissue were found on the weapon and DNA evidence showed both men had sex with her.

At his trial, prosecutors presented evidence Pal wasn’t shot where she was found; that Ward alone couldn’t have carried her body to where it was dumped; and that since he and Foster were nearly inseparable and DNA showed both had sex with her, it was clear Foster was involved. A Tarrant County jury agreed, and both received the death sentence. Ward died in 2010 of cancer while on death row.

Foster grew up in Henderson, Ky., and spent nearly two decades in the Army. Records showed court martial proceedings were started against the sergeant first class and he was denied re-enlistment after allegations he gave alcohol to underage students as a recruiter in Fort Worth and had sex with an underage potential recruit. He’d been a civilian only a short time when the slayings occurred.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cleve-foster-executed-by-texas-after-failing-to-win-4th-reprieve-from-us-supreme-court/

Robert Harris Texas Execution

Robert Harris was executed by the State of Texas for five murders. According to court documents Robert Harris was fired from his job and would return later and opened fire killing five people. Robert Harris would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Robert Harris would be executed by lethal injection on September 20 2012

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Robert Wayne Harris, who confessed to killing five people at a Dallas-area car wash a week after he was fired from his job there in 2000, was executed Thursday evening.

Harris, 40, received a lethal injection less than two hours after the U.S. Supreme Court refused appeals to halt his punishment.

Harris expressed love to his brother and three friends who were watching through a window.

“I’m going home. I’m going home,” Harris said. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be alright. God bless, and the Texas Rangers, Texas Rangers.”

He snored briefly as the lethal dose of pentobarbital began, then all breathing stopped. He was pronounced dead at 6:43 p.m.

Harris was convicted of two of the five slayings in March 2000 at the Mi-T-Fine Car Wash in Irving. He also was charged with abducting and killing a woman months before the killing spree and led police to her remains.

Harris didn’t deny the slayings, but his lawyer unsuccessfully contended in appeals he was mentally impaired and should be spared because of a Supreme Court ban on execution of mentally impaired people. Attorney Lydia Brandt also argued prosecutors improperly removed black prospective jurors from serving on his trial jury. Harris is black.

Harris died “without ever having had a fair trial” on the issues, Brandt said.

Harris’ brother asked to leave the death chamber before the procedure was complete. A half-dozen friends and relatives of the victims also were present, watching in another room. Harris never looked at them. Two of them hugged after it was apparent Harris was dead. They declined to speak with reporters afterward.

State attorneys opposed Harris’ appeals, saying IQ tests disputed the mental impairment claims and that no racial component was involved in jury selection.

Harris had served an eight-year sentence for burglary and other offenses and had been working at the car wash for about 10 months when he was fired and arrested after exposing himself to a female customer. The following Monday, he showed up before the business opened, demanded the safe be opened and then shot the manager, the assistant who had fired Harris and a cashier.

Three more employees reporting to work also were shot, two of them fatally. Harris was arrested the next day.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-executes-robert-harris-confessed-killer-of-five-after-failed-supreme-court-appeals/