texas execution | My Crime Library

Jeffrey Barney Texas Execution

Jeffrey Barney was executed by the State of Texas for the sexual assault and murder of a woman. According to court documents Jeffrey Barney would get into an argument with the victim who he would then sexually assault and then strangle with a phone cord. Jeffrey Barney would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Jeffrey Barney would be executed by lethal injection on April 16, 1986

Jeffrey Barney More News

Jeffrey Barney, who said he deserved to die for the rape and murder of a minister’s wife, was executed by injection early Wednesday.

Barney, 28, who dismissed his attorney and rejected appeals of his conviction, was pronounced dead at 1:22 a.m. EST, authorities said.

‘I’m sorry for what I done, and I deserve it, and I hope Jesus forgives me,’ Barney said as he lay on the gurney just before he was executed.

One tear rolled down his cheek, but he smiled and said to the Rev. Freddie Wier, his only witness, ‘May God bless you, Freddie.’

‘May God bless you, son,’ the Harris County Jail chaplain responded.

‘I’m tingling all over,’ Barney said after the deadly solution had begun to seep into his veins. He jerked, let out what sounded like a snore, then lay still.

‘He was very calm, cheerful, nearly joking with the chaplain and other people as he was prepared,’ said Attorney General Jim Mattox, who witnessed the execution. ‘He seemed resolved to what was taking place and even very glad it was taking place.’

He was the 12th inmate in Texas and the 55th in the nation to be executed since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. A Florida inmate, Daniel Morris Thomas, was executed at 12:19 p.m. EST Tuesday

Barney, described as ‘calm and in a good mood,’ had awaited his execution in a cell near the execution chamber, eating a final meal of frosted flakes, visiting with Wier and playing dominoes with a prison officer. Wier was Barney’s only witness.

Barney, a native of Dayton, Ohio, requested sausage pizza and milk for lunch and asked for two boxes of breakfast cereal and a pint of milk for his final meal.

Barney, who admitted the brutality of his crime, fired his lawyer and refused to authorize any appeals. His conviction and death sentence were upheld during a state appeal guaranteed by law.

He was convicted of killing Ruby Mae Longsworth, 54, in her Pasadena, Texas, home Nov. 24, 1981, while her husband was attending a ministers’ convention.

‘I don’t want to live the rest of my life in prison,’ Barney told reporters earlier this year, adding he deserved to die and was willing to administer the lethal injection himself.

‘If someone had done that to my mother, (execution) wouldn’t have been enough punishment,’ Barney said. ‘It’s been too easy for me. I just sit there in my cell every day. I’m a loner. That’s the way I prefer it.’

Houston lawyer Mary Moore offered to appeal on Barney’s behalf, but he refused her efforts and a Houston judge granted Barney’s request to have her removed from the case.

About 30 students from nearby Sam Houston State University who favor the death penalty gathered, drinking and giggling, at an outdoor death watch party about a block from the death chamber.

‘We’re for it until they come up withsomething better,’ one said of capital punishment.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/04/16/Jeffrey-Allen-Barney-who-said-he-deserved-to-die/6421514011600/

Charlie Bass Texas Execution

Charlie Bass was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of a city Marshall. According to court documents Charlie Bass was stopped by Houston City Marshall Charles Baker when a fight ensued and Bass would fatally shoot Baker. Charlie Bass would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Charlie Bass would be executed by lethal injection on March 12 1986

Charlie Bass More News

A man convicted of murdering a city marshal in a Houston shootout was put to death by injection early today after telling his weeping mother, ″Don’t feel bad, Mama. I deserve this.″

″Tell everybody goodbye,″ Charles Bass, 29, told his mother, Rose England, who was among witnesses to the execution.

″God’s going to take care of you,″ she replied. ″I love you, sweetheart.″

Bass took two deep breaths, looked at her, then stared at the ceiling. He was pronounced dead at 12:21 a.m., said Attorney General Jim Mattox.

The execution at the Texas Department of Corrections’ Wall Unit was the second in the United States this year and the 52nd since the Supreme Court allowed states to resume capital punishment in 1976.

Another condemned killer, Roger ″Animal″ DeGarmo, had also been scheduled for execution early today, but won a stay from a federal judge in Houston Tuesday.

Bass appealed to the Supreme Court for a stay, but the court turned the request down in a 7-2 vote late Tuesday, rejecting arguments that he didn’t get a fair trial because his attorney allegedly had a conflict of interest.

He was convicted in 1980 in the August 1979 slaying of Houston City Marshal Charles Henry Baker, who along with another officer investigating a $300 holdup stopped Bass as he was walking down a street. In a scuffle that ensued, Bass and Baker traded gunfire.

Both were wounded, and Bass again shot Baker while fleeing. He was arrested four days later in Kentucky after police were tipped off by his relatives.

Bass had insisted Baker was shot in self-defense.

Bert Graham, the assistant district attorney who prosecuted Bass, said the execution was ″a matter of self-defense for society.″

″You never wish some ill on anyone, but he has demonstrated that if society doesn’t put an end to his life, he is going to put an end to some innocent’s life,″ Graham said.

Bass’ criminal record included lengthy juvenile detention. He also served a prison term for burglary. A counselor testified at his trial that Bass once told of stabbing his mother in the back.

Mattox said he was surprised by the execution because many inmates have obtained stays. ″But as he said, he felt like he was getting something he deserved.″

DeGarmo’s attorneys argued successfully Tuesday that people opposed to the death penalty were excluded from the jury in his trial.

″I am unhappy for myself but am happy for my people,″ said DeGarmo, who had demanded to be put to death, but requested a stay because of his family.

Had Bass and DeGarmo both been put to death, it would have been the first double execution in a state since 1976 and the first in Texas since 1951.

Friends visited both inmates Tuesday. Bass ate a plain cheese sandwich as his final meal late in the evening, and a chaplain gave him Holy Communion.

DeGarmo gained notoriety when he auctioned off three of the five witness seats a convict is allowed in the death chamber, and promised to give a play- by-play account of his last minutes of life. Seven people bid for the seats, and two offered $1,500 apiece. DeGarmo, who refused to identify the bidders, said the money would be divided between his family and the victim’s.

He was sentenced to death for the 1979 slaying of Kimberly Ann Strickler, a 20-year-old Houston hematologist who was shot to death as she lay in the trunk of her car after being kidnapped from a shopping center parking lot.

The first execution this year was that of James Terry Roach, 25, who was electrocuted in South Carolina Jan. 10 for murdering two teen-agers when he was 17 years old

https://apnews.com/article/194067a1e2f12d79087bc35f1d9d0bbf

Charles Milton Texas Execution

Charles Milton was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of a store clerk during a robbery. According to court documents Charles Milton was robbing a liquor store when he shot and killed the owner. Charles Milton would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Charles Milton was executed by lethal injection on May 25 1985

Charles Milton More News

Charles Milton, convicted of murdering a liquor store owner during a robbery, was executed by injection today after last-minute appeals to Gov. Mark White and the U.S. Supreme Court failed.

Milton, 34, of Fort Worth, who converted to Islam while in prison, used his final statement while strapped to a Texas Department of Corrections gurney to pray to Allah and to urge his ″brothers and sisters to be strong.″

He was sentenced to death for the slaying eight years and one day ago of Fort Worth liquor store owner Menaree Denton, who was shot in the heart while she and her husband, Leonard, struggled with Milton during an aborted robbery

Defense attorneys contended the shooting was an accident.

The legal scramble through the state and federal courts climaxed at 1 a.m. with word that the Supreme Court had refused to act. White, as has been his custom, then rejected the petition for a reprieve.

Milton, with needles inserted into his arms to carry the lethal drugs, had little reaction and died peacefully. His only deliberate movement as the drugs entered his system was to nod to his brother-in-law, Joseph Smith, one of five personal witnesses he selected.

He was pronounced dead at 1:33 a.m., becoming the fourth Texas prison inmate this year and eighth overall to be executed since the state resumed the death penalty in 1982.

In a two-page typewritten statement released late Monday, Milton said he suffered many sleepless nights for the crime.

″I am sorry Mrs. Denton was killed in the struggle over the gun, but I didn’t even know Mrs. Denton was dead until several days later,″ he wrote. He said her husband was as much to blame because of the struggle for the weapon.

Milton’s written statement asked Allah for forgiveness. But he also criticized his attorneys for the handling of his case, saying he learned more about it through newspapers or the radio than from them.

″My final words are to my mother,″ the statement said. ″I have lived my last years as a Muslim. I die as a Muslim and I would like to be buried as a Muslim. I have no hard feeling to anyone in this world.″

He signed his statement as ″Hakeem Saboor Rahim a.k.a. Charles Milton.″

Earlier Monday he met with two sisters, his ex-wife and four children

″He would have been all right if he hadn’t got involved with dope,″ said Helen Milton, his former wife, who said he had a $600-a-day drug addiction. ″He did the best he could, and two weeks before the incident he was talking about how he was clean and going to move back in.″

Today’s death date was Milton’s third. Two earlier dates had been stayed. He had been on Death Row more than six years.

https://apnews.com/article/baeb3eca846c5d53d8d904724f7092c8

Jesse de la Rosa Texas Execution

Jesse De La Rosa was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of store clerk during a robbery. According to court documents Jesse De La Rose would fatally shoot Masaoud Ghazali during a robbery. Jesse De La Rosa would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death. Jesse De La Rosa would be executed by lethal injection on May 15 1985

Jesse De La Rosa More News

Jesse de la Rosa, telling his stepmother he loved her and asking forgiveness for his sins, was executed by lethal injection early today for killing a convenience store clerk for six cans of beer in 1979.

Mr. de la Rosa, 24 years old, was pronounced dead at 12:17 A.M., four minutes after injections in both arms. He was the 11th person executed in this country this year and the 43d put to death since the Supreme Court reinstituted capital punishment in 1976.

Mr. de la Rosa was executed for the slaying of Masaoud Ghazali, a former Iranian Air Force captain who was shot twice in the head in a robbery of a San Antonio 7-Eleven store.

He made his final statement staring at the ceiling, telling his stepmother, Carmen, who was in the death chamber, ”I love you.’

”God forgive my brothers and sisters for sins I have committed,” Mr. de la Rosa said in Spanish.

They Both Speak to Him

Mr. de la Rosa’s stepmother, who was accompanied by the condemned man’s father, Luciano, replied in English, ”You’ll never die because you’ll always be in my memories.”

His father added, in Spanish, ”God forgive my son.”

Mr. de la Rosa then added, ”God, I give my life for my brothers and sisters.”

When he gasped and buckled, his stepmother began sobbing. She was comforted by his father, who was also in tears. The couple left the prison without further comment.

The execution, the third carried out this year by the Texas Department of Corrections, came after two days of unsuccessful appeals. Late Tuesday the Supreme Court voted 7 to 2 to deny him new hearings. Then Gov. Mark White, as he in previous death sentences, refused to grant a 30-day reprieve.

He Receives Communion

After a steak dinner, Jesse de la Rosa spoke by telephone for 20 minutes to a longtime friend, Margie Garcia of San Antonio, and shortly after 8 P.M. he received communion from a prison priest, the Rev. Stephen Walsh.

It was the second death date for Mr. de la Rosa, who said in an interview a week ago that he had been coerced into confessing the slaying. He refused, however, to identify another killer.

A store clerk shot earlier the same night in a $40 robbery identified Mr. de la Rosa, who was 18 at the time. Mr. de la Rosa has said he had been drinking and smoking marijuana that night but was at a friend’s house when Mr. Ghazali was walked to the back of the store to a cooler and was shot twice in the head.

Asked if the execution relieved her, Mr. Ghazali’s wife, Gloria, replied, ”It does,” then hung up the telephone.

A second man involved in the crime spree, Alejandro Alcorta Garcia, 28, is serving a life sentence for aggravated robbery

https://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/16/us/prisoner-in-texas-dies-for-murder.html

Stephen Morin Texas Execution

Stephen Morin was a serial killer who was executed by the State of Texas for numerous murders of young girls and boys. According to court documents Stephen Morin was responsible for the murders of forty young women and seven men in the 1970s and 1980s. Stephen Morin would be convicted and sentenced to death. Stephen Morin would be executed by lethal injection on March 13 1985

Stephen Morin More News

Stephen Peter Morin, a Christian convert three times condemned for murdering young women, accepted his death sentence without resistance and was executed early Wednesday, ending his life with a prayer.

Morin, 34, was pronounced dead at 12:55 a.m. CST, after medics spent nearly an hour trying to find a vein to accept the tube carrying a lethal cocktail of drugs.

Morin was executed for the Dec. 11, 1981, shooting death of Carrie Marie Scott, 21, outside a San Antonio restaurant.

He was also under death sentences for the Dec. 3, 1981, slaying of Janna Bruce, 21, in Corpus Christi, Texas, and for the November 1981 killing of Denver waitress Sheila Ann Whalen, 23.

Morin was strapped to a gurney at 12:03 a.m. CST, offering no resistance. Medics, who said his veins were ‘shot’ by drug use, probed for a vein until 12:44 a.m. CST, when a saline solution was injected into his arm, said Texas Department of Corrections spokesman Charles Brown.

Morin’s final statement was a prayer for forgiveness.

‘Father forgive these people,’ he said, ‘for they know not what they do. Forgive them as you have forgiven me and I have forgiven them.’

His last words were: ‘Lord Jesus, I commit my soul to you.’

Morin then blew a kiss to a woman witness. As the poison flowed into his veins, Morin drew one deep breath, his last.

State District Judge David Berchelmann in San Antonio and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin had earlier denied motions by Gerald Goldstein, general counsel for the Texas Civil Liberties Union, to stay the execution.

Morin is the 40th convict executed in the United States and the sixth in Texas since the Supreme Court lifted its ban on capital punishment in 1976.

Morin, who began a fast out of religious motivation Tuesday, requested bread without yeast for his last meal.

The former cocaine addict and drifter from Providence, R.I., said he was converted to Christianity by his last kidnap victim who played tapes by the Rev. Kenneth Copeland, a Texas evangelist.

Morin had asked that no appeals be made to stop his death but Goldstein questioned his mental competence.

‘I am not asking for a stay. If one is granted, I will take it,’ prison spokesman Phil Guthrie told Goldstein Tuesday night.

On a 36-minute trip Tuesday morning from death row to the downtown Huntsville prison where the execution chamber is located, Morin ‘appeared to be in good spirits,’ Guthrie said.

‘At one point he jokingly asked the group if they’d like to stop and go fishing,’ Guthrie said.

Prison Warden Jack Pursley quoted Morin as saying his fate was ‘in the hands of the Lord.’

Morin claimed he was converted to Christianity by kidnap victim Margaret Mayfield Palm. She testified that after Morin abducted her at gunpoint to escape police hunting him for Scott’s murder, they drove around for 10 hours reading from her handwritten journal of Bible verses and listening to tapes by Copeland.

Morin was arrested at bus station after he freed Palm and she told police he planned to take a bus to Fort Worth to surrender to Copeland, an evangelist the prisoner asked to witness the execution.

Morin was on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list when he was arrested. A federal fugitive warrant charged him with the 1976 kidnapping and rape of a 14-year-old San Francisco girl. He also was a suspect in several rapes, abductions and murders of young women in Las Vegas, Utah, Indiana, California and New York.

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1985/03/13/Stephen-Peter-Morin-a-Christian-convert-three-times-condemned/8207479538000/