texas execution | My Crime Library

Jesse Hernandez Texas Execution

Jesse Hernandez was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of a child. According to court documents Jesse Hernandez who was previously convicted of sexually molesting a child would hit the two children aged 10 months and four years old with a flashlight killing the infant. Jesse Hernandez would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Jesse Hernandez would be executed by lethal injection on March 29 2012

Jesse Hernandez More News

A Dallas County man who was supposed to be taking care of an 10-month-old boy, but instead fatally beat him with a flashlight, was executed Wednesday night.

Jesse Joe Hernandez, a 47-year-old convicted child sex offender, was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m., 10 minutes after the lethal dose was administered into his body.

Hernandez was found guilty and sentenced to die by lethal injection for the murder of Karlos Borjas 11 years ago. Hernandez, who was staying with his girlfriend and the boy’s mother at the time, was supposed to be babysitting Borjas and his 4-year-old sister on the night of April 11, 2001.

Hernandez was convicted of murder for hitting the boy, who suffered a skull fracture, and his sister with a flashlight. The girl survived, but Borjas was taken off life support a week later and died.

Wednesday night, Hernandez was in a cheerful mood, addressing friends through the glass as he lay strapped to the gurney

“Tell my son I love him very much. God bless everybody,” he said. “Continue to walk with God. Go Cowboys!”

During the murder trial, jurors saw photos of the badly beaten boy connected to tubes in the hospital and injuries his sister suffered. They also learned that Hernandez had a previous conviction for molesting a child and drug possession, had beat his ex-wife with a baseball bat, burned a girlfriend’s child with cigarettes and was found with a shank while locked up in jail.

Hernandez thanked the witnesses who were there to see him executed Wednesday night.

“Thank you. I can feel it. I taste it. It is not bad,” he said before breathing heavily and losing consciousness.

Court records showed Hernandez and his wife of six years had been living for about three days with the two children and their 22-year-old mother in a Dallas house that had no running water. Hernandez and his wife were to watch the children while their mother was working as a waitress.

On the night the children were attacked, Hernandez’s wife left to run some errands. When she returned he told her the kids were sleeping and not to disturb them. Hours later, after their mother returned from work, the girl complained her head was hurting and was taken to a hospital. In her absence, Hernandez’s wife discovered Borjas’ injuries and called paramedics. Police then were notified.

Hernandez’s DNA was found in Borjas’ blood on a pillowcase and on the child’s clothing. The girl drew stick figures for police to help describe her attack.

Hernandez denied beating the children but later told a detective he may have hit the boy with a flashlight. He did not include the flashlight reference in a written confession in which he said he “just exploded and hit them with the back of (his) hand.”

“They were being very bad by crying a lot for nothing,” Hernandez wrote.

The slain boy’s mother subsequently lost legal custody of her surviving daughter to the girl’s grandmother.

https://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Go-Cowboys-the-last-words-of-executed-child-3444459.php

Keith Thurmond Texas Execution

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?”

https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/magnolia/news/article/Thurmond-dies-for-2001-double-murder-9554317.php

Rodrigo Hernandez Texas Execution

Rodrigo Hernandez was executed by the State of Texas for the sexual assault and murder of a woman. According to court documents Rodrigo Hernandez would sexually assault and murder Susan Verstegen in 1994 whose body would be left in a trash can. Rodrigo Hernandez who was not caught for years was finally tied to the brutal murder by DNA left at another crime scene. Rodrigo Hernandez would be executed by lethal injection on January 26, 2012

Rodrigo Hernandez More News

Texas executed a convicted murderer by lethal injection on Thursday, administering the ultimate punishment to a man who had been paroled for an assault in Michigan when his DNA linked him to a years-old murder in San Antonio.

Rodrigo Hernandez, 38, was convicted of sexually assaulting and strangling Susan Verstegen in 1994, leaving her body in a San Antonio trash can.

The execution, which a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said was carried out at a prison in Huntsville, was the second in the United States this year after Oklahoma executed Gary Welch on January 5 for stabbing a man to death during a drug dispute.

Among Hernandez’s final statements, he said: “I want to tell everybody that I love everybody. Keep your heads up,” according to the Department of Criminal Justice spokesman. “We are all family, people of God almighty.”

Shortly before lapsing into unconsciousness, he said: “This stuff stings, man,” according to Jason Clark, the department spokesman.

Hernandez’s victim was a 38-year-old Frito-Lay worker who was stocking snacks at a grocery store when she was attacked in 1994, according to the Texas Attorney General’s Office.

Hernandez’s DNA wasn’t matched to the crime until 2002, when Michigan officials took a sample from him as he was paroled for a separate crime and put it into a national database.

Hernandez was the first person executed this year in Texas, which executed 13 people in 2011 and has put to death more than four times as many people as any other state since the United States reinstated capital punishment in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Hernandez told the San Antonio Express-News in an interview published this month he didn’t kill Verstegen and will “take that to the grave.”

But Verstegen’s mother, Anna Verstegen of San Antonio, said this week she hoped Hernandez would, before he died, feel sorry for what he did to her daughter, who left behind a 15-year-old son.

“It’s never too late,” she told Reuters. “We’re just praying for him. The kind of God I believe in can forgive.”

In 2010, Michigan investigators said DNA evidence linked Hernandez to the 1991 murder of Muriel Stoepker, 77, of Grand Rapids, but that he would not be tried because he was already on death row in Texas.

An execution that had been scheduled in Texas for next week was stayed on Wednesday by the Supreme Court. The convict granted the reprieve, Donald Newbury, was to be executed for his role in the 2000 murder of an Irving, Texas, police officer.

Newbury, part of a group known as the “Texas Seven,” escaped from prison and robbed a sporting goods store at gunpoint. The officer, Aubrey Hawkins, was killed outside the store as the group left the scene.

Newbury was granted the stay after his attorneys raised concerns about the effectiveness of his lawyers during post-conviction proceedings.

Nationwide, the number of executions fell for the second year in a row in 2011, with 43 inmates put to death compared with 46 in 2010 and 52 in 2009, Death Penalty Information Center figures show. In 1999, a record 98 prisoners were executed.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-execution-texas-idUSTRE80Q02O20120127

Jerry Martin Texas Death Row

Jerry Martin was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of a correctional officer during a prison escape. According to court documents Jerry Martin was serving a fifty year sentence for attempted murder when he and John Falk would overpower a correctional guard and seize the officers weapon. During the escape correctional officer Susan Canfield would be critically injured when the horse she was on was hit by the stolen pickup that the two inmates were in. Jerry Martin and John Falk would be arrested hours after the escape. Jerry Martin and John Falk were both convicted and sentenced to death. John Falk remains on Texas death row. Jerry Martin waived all of his appeals and was executed by lethal injection on December 13, 2013

Jerry Martin More News

Texas executed by lethal injection on Tuesday a man convicted of slamming a pickup truck into a mounted correctional officer in a prison escape attempt in 2007, knocking her off the horse and killing her.

Jerry Martin, 43, was pronounced dead at 6:27 p.m. U.S. Central Time (0027 GMT on Wednesday) at a state prison in Huntsville, Texas, according to a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Before he was put to death, Martin told the victim’s family he was sorry and that he took full responsibility for her death, according to a statement released by the prison

“To my family, we’ve talked earlier and you know I’m at peace. God is the ultimate judge, he knows what happened,” he said before his execution, according to the prison statement.

Martin, who requested that there be no appeals of the execution, was serving a 50-year sentence for attempted murder and assault when he and a fellow inmate tried to escape from a prison detail doing farm work.

Martin took an officer’s weapon, ran to a parking lot and stole a Huntsville city truck. He was convicted of using the vehicle to kill Susan Canfield, 59, a correctional officer and a grandmother, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said.

Jerry Martin became the 16th person executed by Texas in 2013, the most of any state this year, and the 36th person executed in the United States this year, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Texas has executed 508 prisoners since the reinstatement of capital punishment by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976, also the most of any U.S. state.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-execution-texas-idUSBRE9B304820131204

Jamie McCoskey Texas Execution

Jamie McCoskey was executed by the State of Texas for a sexual assault and murder. According t court documents Jamie McCoskey would break into a home where he would force the couple into a car then later murder the man and sexually assault the female. Jamie McCoskey would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Jamie McCoskey would be executed by lethal injection on November 13, 2013

Jamie McCoskey More News

A Texas man convicted of abducting a young Houston couple, raping the woman and fatally stabbing the man in 1991 was put to death Tuesday evening.

Jamie McCoskey, 49, already was on a form of probation when he was arrested for the slaying of 21-year-old Michael Dwyer, who had been stabbed nearly two dozen times, and the rape of Dwyer’s pregnant fiance. The couple had been abducted from their apartment.

Asked if he had any final statement, McCoskey replied: “The best time in my life is during this period. … I have been touched by an angel’s wings.”

He said that if he could, he would “change Dwyer’s parents’ suffering, because I know they are.”

During his brief comments, and as a tear ran down the side of his face just above a tattoo teardrop and below his right eye, McCoskey said he wanted “to say some things so bad.”

He said he appreciated people who had helped him, then turned his gaze toward Dwyer’s mother and stepfather, saying, “And if this takes the pain away, so be it.”

After telling the warden he was “ready to go,” McCoskey turned his head back toward the warden in the seconds before the lethal dose of pentobarbital began taking effect and said loudly: “Better not be no mix-up here. I don’t want no stay.”

McCoskey let out a loud laugh, then began taking deep breaths that became several snores.

He was pronounced dead at 6:44 p.m. CST, 19 minutes after the lethal drug began to be administered

Dwyer’s mother and stepfather declined to speak with reporters afterward.

McCoskey became the 15th convicted killer executed this year in Texas, which carries out the death penalty more than any other state.

The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year refused to review McCoskey’s case, and his attorneys filed no last-day appeals in the courts.

Evidence showed the couple had left the door of their apartment open while they were bringing home groceries and were confronted by the knife-wielding McCoskey exactly 22 years ago Wednesday.

He ordered them to their car, handcuffed Dwyer, drove around Houston and stopped at an abandoned ramshackle house where he raped the woman. She fled to a nearby home to seek help when she realized sounds she was hearing were of Dwyer being stabbed repeatedly.

Their car was found at an apartment complex where McCoskey once lived. Based on a description of the attacker, residents there identified McCoskey, whose 6-foot-7-inch height and square facial features had earned him the nickname “Lurch,” after the hulking Frankenstein-like servant to the fictional “Addams Family” television comedy of the 1960s.

His mother testified at his trial that McCoskey had an abusive childhood that led to behavioral problems. After stints in juvenile facilities, his offenses escalated as he reached adulthood.

Before reaching death row, he had a kidnapping conviction in Austin, assaults while in prison, marijuana possession busts and a jail term where records show he used a chisel to crack the skull of a fellow Harris County inmate.

He also was remembered for walking into the Houston courtroom the day after his capital murder conviction in 1992, grabbing a heavy oak chair and heaving it about 10 feet. It hit one prosecutor in the arm and grazed another before crashing into the jury box rail.

“That’s for lying in court!” McCoskey shouted at the prosecutors.

Jurors weren’t present yet and didn’t see the incident. Days later, they rejected defense arguments McCoskey was insane and mentally ill and decided he should be put to death. Prosecutors presented testimony McCoskey had an anti-social personality disorder but did know right from wrong.

“My only wish for Jamie is godspeed,” Jim Peacock, his lead defense lawyer, said. “And I hope whatever there is for him after this point is kinder to him than his past has been.

At least seven other Texas prisoners are set to die in the coming months, including one next month.

https://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/Texas-executes-inmate-with-violent-past-4980125.php