A Texas man sentenced to death for fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend has become the first person executed in the United States this year.
Charles Victor Thompson, 55, was pronounced dead at 6.50pm CST after receiving a lethal injection Wednesday at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was condemned for the April 1998 shooting deaths of his ex-girlfriend, Glenda Dennise Hayslip, 39, and her new boyfriend, Darren Keith Cain, 30, at the woman’s suburban Houston apartment.
In his final words, Thompson asked the families of his victims to find it in their hearts to forgive him, adding, “that you can begin to heal and move past this.”
“There are no winners in this situation,” he said after a spiritual adviser prayed over him for about three minutes and shortly before a lethal dose of pentobarbital was administered.
He said his execution “creates more victims and traumatizes more people 28 years later.”
“I’m sorry for what I did. I’m sorry for what happened, and I want to tell all of y’all, I love you and that keep Jesus in your life, keep Jesus first,” he added.
As the injection began taking effect, Thompson gasped loudly, then took about a dozen breaths that evolved into three snores. Then all movement ceased and he was pronounced dead 22 minutes later.
“He’s in hell,” one of the witnesses, Dennis Cain — whose son was killed — said after Thompson was declared dead by a physician.
“This chapter is closed,” Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare, whose office prosecuted the case, said after watching Thompson die. ”It was justice a long time coming.”
According to court records, Hayslip and Darren Cain were dating when Thompson came to Hayslip’s apartment and began arguing with Cain around 3 a.m. the night of the killings. Police were called and told Thompson to leave the apartment complex. He returned three hours later and shot both Hayslip and Cain.
Cain died at the scene, and Hayslip died in a hospital a week later.“
About an hour before the scheduled 6pm execution, the U.S. Supreme Court — without explanation — issued a brief order rejecting Thompson’s final appeal. On Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles had denied Thompson’s request to commute his death sentence to a lesser penalty.
Thompson’s attorneys had argued in filings with the Supreme Court that he was not allowed to refute or confront the prosecution’s evidence that concluded Hayslip died from a gunshot wound to the face. Thompson’s attorneys argued that Hayslip actually died from flawed medical care she received after the shooting that resulted in severe brain damage sustained from oxygen deprivation following a failed intubation.
Prosecutors had said a jury had already rejected the claim by Thompson and decided under state law he was responsible for Hayslip’s death because it “would not have occurred but for his conduct.”
