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Larry Smith Texas Execution

Larry Smith was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of a store clerk during a robbery. According to court documents Larry Smith and Gloster Smith would rob a 7-11 and in the process Larry would shoot and kill the store clerk. Larry Smith would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Gloster Smith received a life sentence. Larry Smith would be executed by lethal injection on August 22, 1986

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With the execution of two men this week, Texas has put to death 17 people — more than any other state — since 1977 and plans at least one execution per month for the rest of this year, the attorney general said Friday.

Larry Smith, 30, was put to death by injection early Friday for murdering a convenience store manager during a $25 robbery. His execution was the second in Texas in 48 hours. Another death row inmate is scheduled to die Tuesday.

After Larry Smith was pronounced dead, Attorney General Jim Mattox said he expects at least one execution a month in Texas during the remainder of 1986. Two inmates scheduled to die on consecutive days in September are not expected to win stays.

‘I think it will gradually grow more and more, and I think the inmates on death row are sensing, and their lawyers are sensing, that factor, and are gradually realizing there are few issues that affect all cases that remain to be litigated,’ Mattox said.

Although the Supreme Court lifted the nationwide ban on capital punishment in 1976 and the first execution came the next year, Texas didn’t reinstate the practice until 1982.

In just four years, however, Texas is leading the nation in executions, with seven of the 17 executions this year.

As Larry Smith awaited death, he said from the gurney, ‘All I want to do is tell my mother that I love her and to continue on without me and tell her may God bless her. I also want to tell the other guys on death row to continue their struggle to get off death row. That’s about it.’

As the lethal dose of drugs took effect, Smith’s eyelids fluttered several times. He coughed loudly three times before making a choking noise twice and taking a final gulp of air. He was pronounced dead at 12:24 a.m. CDT.

A series of federal courts, including the Supreme Court, rejected requests to block Smith’s execution in the hours before his death.

Another death row inmate, Chester Lee Wicker, is to be executed Tuesday for the 1980 murder of Suzanne C. Knuth. She was abducted from a Beaumont shopping center, choked and buried alive on a Bolivar Peninsula beach

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/08/22/With-the-execution-of-two-men-this-week-Texas/7520072256505/

Randy Woolls Texas Execution

Randy Woolls was executed by the State of Texas for a brutal murder. According to court documents Randy Woolls would rob a ticket seller at a drive in movie theater. Randy Woolls would attack the woman who was stabbed repeatedly before being set on fire. Randy Woolls would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Randy Woolls would be execute by lethal injection on August 20 1986

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An addict helped technicians find veins in his drug-scarred arms as he was executed today for beating, slashing and burning to death a mother of four at a drive-in movie theater where she worked.

″I’d like to say goodbye to my family,″ Randy Lynn Woolls, 36, said in a final statement. ″I love all of them.

″I’d like to tell the people fighting against the death penalty to continue their work. I’d like to say I’m sorry for the victim and family, and I wish there was something I could do to make it all right.″

Woolls was pronounced dead at 12:23 a.m., said Attorney General Jim Mattox.

″He was helpful in flexing his fist in attempting to make his veins come out,″ Mattox said. ″He said because he was a heavy drug user, people would have a difficult time finding his veins.″

The injections were made near a tattoo of a buzzard grasping a syringe on his right arm and pictures of the Grim Reaper and a swastika on his left arm.

The U.S. Supreme Court and Gov. Mark White on Tuesday rejected appeals.

Woolls is the 16th Texas inmate put to death since the state resumed executions in 1982 and the fifth this year. He was the 63rd person executed in the United States since the death penalty was restored in 1976.

Woolls said he was introduced to drugs about age 13 and that drug use was responsible for each of his three prison sentences.

″My whole complaint is that I’m being executed for a crime I can’t remember committing,″ he said. ″I was flipped out on drugs.

″I don’t know what’s supposed to be done with me. I don’t know whether I deserve a life sentence. I feel death is a little severe for something that was a mistake.″

The condemned killer said he was high on Valium injections and malt liquor on June 16, 1979, when Betty Stotts, 44, of Kerrville, was killed.

″They said I beat this woman down with a tire tool, cut her throat, then I piled everything in the booth on top of her and set it on fire,″ Woolls said recently. ″Then while this booth is on fire, I’m sitting there selling tickets to people coming into the show. Then I get in her car and drive inside the show and am sitting inside the show in her car when the cops got there. It’s obvious I was out of my mind.″

Kerr County District Attorney Ron Sutton, who prosecuted Woolls’ case, said an autopsy showed Mrs. Stotts was still alive when Woolls set her on fire.

″We had him in the theater in her car. Her blood was on money in the car,″ Sutton said. ″There was no question about guilt or innocence. The punishment was well deserved for the crime he did.″

Mrs. Stotts’ daughter, Deborah, said her mother was a deeply religious person who had a such a premonition of death that she left her husband and four children letters written just a few days before her slaying.

In the letters, found after her death, Mrs. Stotts told her family she would not always be with them in body, but would in spirit.

https://apnews.com/article/332199ef1aabad366a5ee4d90483427e

Kenneth Brock Texas Execution

Kenneth Brock was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of a store manager. According to court documents Kenneth Brock was robbing a convenience store when police showed up. Kenneth Brock would take the store manager hostage and when police began to move in the man was fatally shot. Kenneth Brock was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Kenneth Brock would be executed on June 19 1986 by lethal injection

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A man convicted of killing a convenience store clerk went quietly to his death Thursday, an execution the victim’s father tried to stop.

″OK, ’bye,″ Kenneth Albert Brock said to relatives witnessing the execution as the lethal drugs flowed into his right arm as he lay in the death chamber at the Walls Unit.

″Kenneth, I love you,″ said his sister, Nancy Dodson. He replied: ″I know.″

Brock, 37, then took about eight more deep breaths and snored before falling silent.

Mrs. Dodson called for her brother three times, crying softly and holding a tissue while her husband embraced her. ″Kenneth, can you hear me?″ she asked.

Doctors pronounced him dead at 12:18 a.m.

Brock, a Marine deserter, was convicted in the May 21, 1974, shooting death of Michael Sedita, 31, manager of a convenience store in Houston.

On Tuesday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles refused to commute Brock’s death penalty to life imprisonment.

″Killing Kenneth Brock is wrong. It will not change what has happened to my son,″ Joseph M. Sedita of Houston, the victim’s father, told the board Tuesday.

″Killing Kenneth Brock will not ease my suffering or my wife’s suffering or the loss of Michael,″ he added. ″Two wrongs don’t make a right. I could not be at peace if Kenneth Brock dies.″

Former Harris County District Attorney George Jacobs, who prosecuted the case 11 years ago, also had asked the parole board to revoke Brock’s sentence. Jacobs said Brock did not deserve to die.

Jacobs said Brock took Sedita hostage into nearby woods after a police officer saw him robbing the store.

″In the excitement, the gun could have gone off,″ he said. Jacobs said the gun may have fired accidentally because of a hair trigger.

Harris County District Attorney John B. Holmes Jr., whose office argued against granting a reprieve, said Jacobs’ opinion was inconsistent with the way he handled the case.

″If he felt that death was not an appropriate penalty at the time, maybe he shouldn’t have tried it as a death penalty case,″ Holmes said.

Brock spent his final morning packing, watching television, and talking with other inmates. He was calm and congenial as he talked with his mother, six sisters, a brother-in-law, and a friend. His last meal was a double cheeseburger with mustard, french fries and a Dr Pepper.

Brock’s execution was the fifth in Texas this year and the 15th since the death penalty was resumed in 1982. The state still has 232 convicts on death row, and Attorney General Jim Mattox said he anticipated at least one execution a month for the rest of the year.

https://apnews.com/article/425f338f9c0c4b01bb1439eebcb2d65d

Rudy Esquivel Texas Execution

Rudy Esquivel was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of an undercover police officer. According to court documents Rudy Esquivel would fatally shoot an undercover police officer who was attempting to arrest him for heroin possession. Rudy Esquivel would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Rudy Esquivel would be executed by lethal injection on June 9 1986

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Without a display of remorse or fear, Rudy Ramos Esquivel was executed by injection today for the murder of an undercover narcotics officer, calmly telling his friends to ‘be cool’ and ‘stay close.’

Esquivel, 50, died at 12:21 a.m. CST, becoming the third man executed in Texas in as many months. He was the 14th person put to death in Texas since it resumed capital punishment in 1982 and the 59th in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen an individual as calm and cheerful and peaceful when he was about to meet his maker,’ said Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox, who spoke with Esquivel before watching him put to death.

Esquivel was convicted of killing Houston police officer Timothy Hearn, 28, on June 8, 1978, during a shoot-out. He claimed police officers had tried to plant heroin on him and said he felt no remorse for the shootings.

Esquivel invited four friends to his execution. ‘Be cool,’ he told them. ‘Thank you for being my friends. Give my love to everybody.’

The witnesses told Esquivel they loved him, and he replied, ‘I love you all. Stay close. Everything’s going to be all right.’

Witness Barbara Longoria read a biblical passage from 2 Timothy, and Esquivel smiled. As a hidden executioner pumped a mixture of three poisons through an intravenous tube, the four witnesses whispered prayers. Esquivel breathed deeply six times, his chest heaving, then made a snoring sound and died.

Longoria fell into the arms of her husband, Pilo, weeping.

‘It’s OK,’ he told her, ‘He’s with the Lord. He’s at peace.’

Esquivel was convicted of shooting Hearn during a drug raid in a Houston parking lot. Hearn’s partner and Esquivel were wounded in the shoot-out.

Esquivel claimed the shooting occurred after the officers tried to plant heroin in his pocket because he had refused to become an informant. He also said he had been convicted unfairly because Hispanics were excluded from his trial jury.

‘I was set up and I have no remorse in me,’ he told reporters recently. ‘I accept what is happening. My great strength is that I know I was right.’

At the time of the killing, Esquivel was on parole from a 99-year sentence he received in 1953. He had been convicted at age 17 in the gang rape of a woman on her way to church, and served 11 years. Esquivel also had been jailed in California for assaulting a police officer and forgery.

Rudy Esquivel lost an appeal before the Supreme Court less than 10 hours before his execution. He took the news calmly and without comment, prison officials said.

Esquivel, who spent Sunday morning watching television, met with relatives, friends, his attorney and a prison minister in the afternoon.

Rudy Esquivel had won a stay of execution Friday from a federal judge, who gave attorneys 20 days to present more evidence of their claim that Hispanics were improperly excluded from Esquivel’s trial jury.

The state appealed, and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans reinstated the death date Saturday.

Esquivel had been on death row since 1978, and had won stays of three previous execution dates.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/06/09/Esquivel-executed-in-Texas/4434518673600/

Jay Pinkerton Texas Execution

Jay Pinkerton was executed by the State of Texas for two sexual assaults and murders. According to court documents Jay Pinkerton, who was 17 years old, would sexually assault and murder two women in two separate crimes. Jay Pinkerton would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Jay Pinkerton at 24 years old would become one of the youngest people to be executed in Texas since the return of capital punishment in the 1970’s. Jay Pinkerton would be executed by way of lethal injection on May 15 1986

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Jay Kelly Pinkerton, convicted of the mutilation-slaying of one woman and the murder of another, said goodbye to his father and was executed today by injection, nine months after escaping the same fate by just 26 minutes.

Pinkerton, 24, was pronounced dead at 12:25 a.m., said Assistant Attorney General Monroe Clayton, just hours after federal judges rejected an appeal hand-delivered by Pinkerton’s mother.

His father, Gene, the only relative to witness the execution, gripped an aluminum rail in the death chamber a few feet from his son

″Be strong for me,″ Pinkerton told his father. ″I want you to know that I’m at peace with myself and with my God. I talked to everybody on the phone. I got to talk to Mom. Say goodbye to Mom. Keep your spirits up for me.″

Then he chanted: ″I bear witness to Allah. I ask for your forgiveness.″

″Bye, Jay,″ his father said.

″I love you, Dad,″ replied Pinkerton, who then said, ″I feel dizziness. I feel dizziness.″ He yawned, his eyes closed, and he died.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday twice refused to block the execution.

After the first rejection, Pinkerton’s mother, Margie, carried a personal appeal from her son to U.S. District Judge Hayden Head of Corpus Christi. Head, who was in Houston for a meeting, denied the appeal about 25 minutes later. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans and the Supreme Court then also refused to stop the execution.

Pinkerton, an apprentice meat cutter, was executed for raping and mutilating Sarah Donn Lawrence in 1979 during a burglary of her Amarillo home when he was 17 years old. Mrs. Lawrence, 30, was stabbed more than 50 times and her throat was slashed.

Pinkerton also was convicted of the 1980 murder of Sherry Welch, 25, of Amarillo, who was stabbed while working in an furniture store.

Even before the final appeals were rejected Gov. Mark White announced he would not halt the execution, calling the slayings ″two of the most brutal and heinous crimes imaginable.″

″After years of litigation, Mr. Pinkerton’s case has been scrutinized in detail and no errors have been found,″ White said. ″It is time that the state be allowed to carry out its lawful punishment.″

Pinkerton averted death in August just 26 minutes before he was to be taken into the death chamber. Another stay was granted in November just 10 hours before his scheduled execution.

Pinkerton’s attorney, Dean Roper, said the appeal delivered by Pinkerton’s mother was unusual but legitimate. It contended that the jury was not asked the proper questions during the sentencing phase of the trial, particularly whether Pinkerton was provoked by Mrs. Lawrence into killing her.

Randy Sherrod, the Randall County district attorney who prosecuted Pinkerton, said the appeals were merely attempts to gain time for the condemned man, and that there was no question of provocation.

The execution was the seventh in the nation this year and the third in Texas. Pinkerton was among the youngest people executed since the U.S. Supreme Court lifted its ban on the death penalty in 1976. The youngest was Jesse de la Rosa, executed in Texas in 1985 for murdering a convenience store clerk in 1979. His age initially was reported as 24, but state prison officials said today he had been 23.

The slayings terrorized the Amarillo area, prompting people to buy extra locks for doors and guns to protect themselves.

Fewer than a dozen spectators stood in a thunderstorm outside the prison while the execution was taking place. Among them was June Morgan, of New Waverly, an aunt of Mrs. Lawrence.

″I can’t believe I’m here hoping somebody dies,″ she said. ″But he’s not a people. He’s an animal.″

https://apnews.com/article/88ee539aeb84853a2f65d0927fb90348