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Kent Sprouse Texas Execution

Kent Sprouse was executed by the State of Texas for two murders including the death of a police officer. According to court documents Kent Sprouse would shoot and kill the first victim, Pedro Moreno, in the parking lot of a gas station. When police arrived to investigate Kent Sprouse would open fire killing Harry Marvin “Marty” Steinfeldt III. Kent Sprouse would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Kent Sprouse would be executed on April 9, 2015

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Texas prison officials on Thursday executed a man convicted in the slaying of a Dallas-area police officer during a 2002 shootout that followed the killing of a customer outside a convenience store.

Kent Sprouse, 42, became the fifth convicted killer put to death this year in Texas, the nation’s most active death penalty state.

Before his execution, Sprouse apologized to the families of his victims and his own family “for all the trouble I’ve caused everyone.” Then he thanked his family for their support.

“I guess that’s it,” he said.

As the lethal drug began taking effect, he said he could “smell it,” then added the drug “started to hit me with that $10,000.”

He took several deep breaths, then began snoring. Within a minute, all movement stopped. He was pronounced dead 22 minutes later at 6:33 p.m. CDT.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review Sprouse’s case in November, and no last-day appeals were filed for him in the courts.

Sprouse was sentenced to death for the October 2002 killing of 28-year-old Harry Marvin “Marty” Steinfeldt III, a police officer in Ferris, about 20 miles south of Dallas.

Witnesses said Sprouse carried a shotgun into the Ferris Food Mart store while he made a purchase and then walked outside and fired toward two men at a pay phone. He went to his car and appeared to have some trouble with it, then shot and killed 38-year-old Pedro Moreno, a customer who was pumping gas near him.

Steinfeldt responded to a 911 call about a customer shot at the store and came under gunfire. He was struck twice under the arm where his protective vest did not cover him. He managed to fire 17 shots, reloading his gun once, and wounded Sprouse in the chest, leg and hand.

Court records indicate Sprouse told an officer who accompanied him in an ambulance to a hospital that he believed Moreno was an undercover officer, so he shot him.

“And I shot the other officer that was in uniform,” Sprouse said, according to the records.

Sprouse was charged in Moreno’s killing, but wasn’t tried for it.

Relatives of both Steinfeldt and Moreno declined to speak with reporters after Sprouse’s execution. Michelle Steinfeldt released a statement saying the execution was “the emotional end of a long, excruciating journey.”

Tests showed that Sprouse, a Boone County, Missouri, native, had taken methamphetamine and other illegal drugs within 48 hours of the killings.

Jim Jenkins, who was Sprouse’s lead lawyer at his trial in Steinfeldt’s death, said Sprouse suffered from the effects of methamphetamine addiction.

“It’s very addictive and easy to get and sort of melts your brain after a while,” Jenkins said last week, recalling the case.

“He just didn’t know what he was doing, but the jury has to buy that. It’s sort of like being drunk and killing somebody. That’s really not a defense, not a legal defense. … The whole thing is extremely sad.”

Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials said a recent purchase of pentobarbital means they have enough of the sedative to carry out three other executions set for this month, including one next week. But at least three more are set for May and June, meaning they would have to find a new supply or switch to a different drug to carry out those executions on schedule.

Death penalty states have found it increasingly difficult to acquire execution drugs because traditional manufacturers now refuse to sell their drugs for use in executions. States now rely on compounding pharmacies for their made-to-order execution drugs.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/4/9/texas-executes-man-for-police-officers-2002-shooting-death.html

Manuel Vasquez Texas Execution

Manuel Vasquez was executed by the State of Texas for a contract killing. Manuel Vasquez who was a member of the Mexican Mafia would strangle Juanita Ybarra as she was not paying the Mexican Mafia their ten percent of her profits. Manuel Vasquez would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Manuel Vasquez would be executed by lethal injection on March 11, 2015

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Texas used one of its two remaining doses of an execution drug to kill a Mexican Mafia hitman on Wednesday evening.

Manuel Vasquez, 46, had been sentenced to die for the 1998 slaying of a woman who balked at paying a gang tax on drug sales.

Vasquez, 46, was pronounced dead at 6:32 p.m. CDT (7:32 ET), 17 minutes after the drug began being administered, according to the Associated Press.

Vasquez was the first of six death-row inmates slated for execution in the coming weeks, but the state only had enough pentobarbital for two of them.

Officials say they are trying to obtain more of the drug, but a recent court decision that says the names of suppliers must be public could make that difficult. States around the country are facing drug shortages because manufacturers refuse to sell their chemicals for capital punishment.

Utah has run out of drugs and lawmakers there approved a bill Tuesday night that would make firing squads the backup to lethal injection.

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/lethal-injection/texas-executes-killer-manuel-vasquez-one-last-two-doses-n321691

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A hit man for the Mexican Mafia gang was executed Wednesday night for the 1998 strangling death of a San Antonio woman, becoming the fourth inmate to face lethal injection in Texas this year.

Manuel Vasquez was declared dead at 6:32 p.m., 17 minutes after a lethal dose of pentobarbital was released through an IV into his arm. He was sentenced to death for his role in the murder of Juanita Ybarra, 51, who had refused to pay gang members a 10 percent street tax on illegal drugs she was selling.

Asked if he had a last statement, Manuel Vasquez, strapped onto a gurney, looked straight up at the ceiling and uttered a brief one.

“I want to say ‘I love you’ to all my family and friends. Thank you, Lord for your mercy and unconditional love. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen,” Vasquez said. His sister, Mary Helen Vasquez, cried loudly as she watched her brother take about two dozen breaths before becoming unconscious.

She declined to make any statement following the execution.

In 1999, jurors convicted Vasquez after hearing how he, Johnny Joe Cruz and Oligario Lujan, broke into Ybarra’s motel room and beat up her boyfriend before turning on Ybarra, who Vasquez strangled with a telephone cord. Prosecutors say Ybarra was killed after refusing to pay a street tax to the gang.

The trio robbed the couple of their valuables and left. According to court records, the three were working for Mexican Mafia boss Rene Munoz, who was on the Texas Department of Public Safety’s 10 Most Wanted List until his 2012 arrest. Cruz took a plea deal and served seven years. Lujan is serving a 35-year prison term.

Court records show Vasquez had a history of violence. He received a 10-year prison sentence for his role in the 1986 death of Robert Alva, who was beaten, choked and set on fire.

The execution of Vasquez leaves the Texas Department of Criminal Justice with enough pentobarbital — the drug it uses for lethal injections — for one more execution, unless a new supply of the drug is found. Six more executions are scheduled between now and mid-May.

Jason Clark, spokesman for TDCJ declined to elaborate specifically on what options the state’s prison system is considering if a new pentobarbital source is not found.

“I can’t speculate on that,” he said. “We are exploring all options including the conitnued use of pentobarbital or an alternative drug or drugs.”

Vasquez’ execution is the 522nd in Texas since the state reintroduced capital punishment.

On March 18, Randall Mays is set to die for fatally shooting two police officers in Henderson County, and he is expected to be the last to be put to death with pentobarbital, the one-drug method used by Texas since 2012.

In September 2013, TDCJ turned to compounding pharmacies, which are allowed to mix or “compound” drugs on site, for its lethal injection drugs after manufacturers stopped providing pentobarbital to U.S. prison systems. But this week, the state prison system confirmed it only had enough pentobarbital for the Vasquez and Mays executions.

While prison officials will not say if they plan to move to another drug combination, TDCJ has been buying midazolam since 2013 and has 40 vials on hand that have yet to expire. However, the drug is at the center of a legal challenge from Oklahoma inmates now before the U.S. Supreme Court. A ruling is expected in late May.

https://www.texastribune.org/2015/03/11/san-antonio-gang-member-set-die-tonight/

Robert Ladd Texas Execution

Robert Ladd was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of a woman in 1996. According to court documents Robert Ladd would beat, bound and set the woman, Vickie Ann Garner, on fire. Robert Ladd would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Robert Ladd would be executed on January 29, 2015 by lethal injection

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Texas death row inmate Robert Ladd man was executed this evening for the killing a 38-year-old woman nearly two decades ago while he was on parole for a triple slaying years earlier.

Robert Ladd, 57, received a lethal injection after the US Supreme Court rejected arguments he was mentally impaired and ineligible for the death penalty.

The court also rejected an appeal in which Ladd’s attorney challenged whether the pentobarbital Texas uses in executions is potent enough to not cause unconstitutional pain and suffering.

Ladd was put to death for the 1996 slaying of Vicki Ann Garner, of Tyler, who was strangled and beaten with a hammer. Her arms and legs were bound, bedding was placed between her legs, and she was set on fire in her apartment

In his final statement, Ladd addressed the sister of his victim by name, telling her he was ‘really, really sorry.’

‘I really, really hope and pray you don’t have hatred in your heart,’ he said, adding that he didn’t think she could have closure but hoped she could find peace. ‘A revenge death won’t get you anything,’ he said.

Then Ladd told the warden: ‘Let’s ride.’

As the drug took effect, he said: ‘Stings my arm, man!’ He began taking deep breaths, then started snoring. His snores became breaths, each one becoming less pronounced, before he stopped all movement.

He was pronounced dead at 7.02pm, 27 minutes after the drug was administered.

Teresa Garner Wooten, Vicki’s sister who was on hand Thursday to watch Ladd put to death, told CBS19 on the eve of the execution that it has been a long time coming.

‘I did not think, 18-plus years ago, that I would still be fighting for justice for her,’ Mrs Wooten said, adding that she had forgiven her sister’s killer.

Ladd came within hours of lethal injection in 2003 before a federal court agreed to hear evidence about juvenile records that suggested he was mentally impaired.

That appeal was denied and the Supreme Court last year turned down a review of Ladd’s case. His attorneys renewed similar arguments as his new execution date approached.

‘Ladd’s deficits are well documented, debilitating and significant,’ Brian Stull, a senior staff lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union Capital Punishment Project, told the high court.

In a press release sent out immediately after Ladd’s execution, Stull said that his death ‘is yet another example of how capital punishment routinely defies the rule of law and human decency.’

Kelli Weaver, a Texas attorney general, reminded the justices in a filing that ‘each court that has reviewed Ladd’s claim has determined that Ladd is not intellectually disabled.’

Ladd’s lawyers cited a psychiatrist’s determination in 1970 that Ladd, then a 13-year-old in custody of the Texas Youth Commission, had an IQ of 67.

Courts have embraced scientific studies that consider an IQ of 70 a threshold for impairment. The inmate’s attorneys also contended he long has had difficulties with social skills and functioning on his own.

Ladd also was a plaintiff in a lawsuit questioning the ‘quality and viability’ of Texas’ supply of its execution drug, pentobarbital. The Texas Attorney General’s Office called the challenge ‘nothing more than rank speculation.’

When he was arrested for Garner’s slaying, Ladd had been on parole for about four years after serving about a third of a 40-year prison term for the slayings of a Dallas woman and her two children. He pleaded guilty to those crimes.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2931331/Man-faces-execution-Texas-1996-strangling-death.html

Arnold Prieto Texas Execution

Arnold Prieto was executed by the State of Texas for the murders of three people. According to court documents Arnold Prieto would stab to death three people using a screwdriver. Arnold Prieto and two other men Jesse and Guadalupe Hernandez went to the home for the purpose of robbery. Arnold Prieto was given a chance to testify against the two brothers in exchange for a thirty year prison sentence however he chose not to. Jesse Hernandez was sixteen years old and was sentenced to life. Guadalupe Hernandez had all charged against him dropped. Arnold Prieto was sentenced to death and would be executed by lethal injection on January 21, 2015

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Death row inmate Arnold Prieto, convicted 20 years ago of a brutal attack with a screwdriver that left three San Antonio residents stabbed to death, has been executed.

He was pronounced dead by prison officials at 6:31 p.m., 20 minutes after he was injected with a lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital. In a brief final statement Prieto, 41, said “there are no endings — only beginnings.”

“Love y’all, see you soon,” he also said, noting moments later that he could smell the drug. “Woah,” he added as he took his last conscious breaths.

Prieto spent Wednesday morning taking pictures with his mother and was given a last meal of barbecue chopped beef, carrots and pinto beans with tea or water, according to prison officials.

He has asked his sister, two friends and a spiritual adviser to be in one of the death chamber’s two observation booths as the execution took place. In the other booth, spots were reserved for four sons and a daughter-in-law of victims Virginia Rodriguez, 62, and Rodolfo Rodriguez, 72.

Prieto is the only one of the three men arrested in 1994 to have received the death penalty for the capital murders of the Rodriguezes and Paula Moran, 90.

Brothers Jesse and Guadalupe Hernandez — grand-nephews of the Rodriguezes — were also initially implicated. The murders were committed one day before Jesse Hernandez’s 17th birthday so he wasn’t eligible for the death penalty. He’s serving a life sentence.

Guadalupe Hernandez, originally labeled by police as the mastermind of the robbery-turned-triple-slaying, had all charges against him dropped. Prosecutors at the time cited a lack of evidence and called his release unfortunate.

In a statement to police, Prieto said the trio, who lived in the Dallas suburb of Carrollton, met in the summer of 1993 and were heavy cocaine users. It was the idea of Guadalupe Rodriguez, he told police, to drive to San Antonio in September of that year to rob a rich uncle who ran a check-cashing business out of his home in the 1100 block of West Mistletoe Avenue.

They snorted cocaine the whole way there and arrived in the middle of the night, Prieto said. Virginia Rodriguez, he recalled in the five-page statement, invited them in and made them a breakfast of eggs, tortillas and orange juice.

After they ate, Guadalupe Rodriguez stabbed his aunt repeatedly with a screwdriver, Prieto told police. Prieto did the same to Rodolfo Rodriguez and Jesse Hernandez stabbed Moran — a family friend and former nanny to the Rodriguez children —when she came out of her bedroom, according to Prieto’s statement.

Jesse Hernandez also gave a statement to police in which he said it was Prieto who had committed all the murders.

Guadalupe Hernandez never gave a statement, but prosecutors offered Prieto a plea deal to testify against him in exchange for two 30-year sentences.

He declined the offer.

https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/crime/article/Convicted-killer-set-to-die-tonight-turned-down-6030235.php

Barney Fuller Texas Execution

Barney Fuller was sentenced to death by the State of Texas for the murders of 2 of his neighbors. According to court documents Barney Fuller would shoot and kill his neighbors Nathan and Annette Copeland following an argument. Barney Fuller would plead guilty to the double murders and would still be sentenced to death. Barney Fuller would be executed by lethal injection on October 5, 2016

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Summoned to court to answer charges that he made a threatening phone call to his neighbor’s home in a rural East Texas county more than two years earlier, Barney Fuller Jr.’s anger smoldered as he began drinking.

Two nights later, Barney Fuller left his home with a 12-gauge shotgun, a military-style semi-automatic carbine and a .40-caliber pistol and carried the weapons about 200 yards to the home of neighbors Nathan and Annette Copeland. He fired 59 shots into their house, kicked in the back door and walked inside, opening fire again. Nathan Copeland, 43, was killed in his bedroom, shot four times. His wife, 39, was gunned down in a bathroom while calling 911. One of their two children was shot but survived.

On Wednesday, Fuller, 58, is set for lethal injection for the May 2003 rampage outside Lovelady, about 100 miles north of Houston.

He’d be the seventh convicted killer executed this year in Texas and the first in six months. His execution would be only the 16th this year nationally, a downturn fueled by fewer death sentences overall, courts halting scheduled executions for additional reviews, and death penalty states encountering difficulties obtaining drugs for lethal injections.

Hours after the shooting frenzy, Fuller called Houston County authorities and told them he would surrender peacefully at his home.

He pleaded guilty to capital murder, declined to be in the courtroom after individual questioning of prospective jurors began at his July 2004 trial, and asked that the trial’s punishment phase go on without his presence. He didn’t return to the courtroom until jurors returned with their death verdict.

“He was very adamant not wanting to be there,” William House, one of his trial lawyers, recalled. “From the very start, he just really didn’t care

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/4/texas-set-to-execute-man-who-pleaded-guilty-to-kil/