Second inmate in as many days heads to death chamber
08:24 AM CST on Thursday, December 4, 2003
HUNTSVILLE, Texas - Strawberry ice cream in a plastic bowl helped send accused killer Ivan Murphy to death row for the fatal beating of an 80-year-old woman he'd known since childhood.
"We dusted the inside of a Cool Whip bowl and found his fingerprint," said former Grayson County District Attorney Robert Jarvis, recalling evidence in Murphy's capital murder trial. "He told officers he hadn't been there in 20 years. He was lying about that."
Murphy, 38, was set for lethal injection Thursday night, the 24th convicted killer to be executed this year in Texas and the second in as many days.
Murphy was condemned for the Jan. 9, 1989 murder of Lula Mae Denning at her home in Denison, about 70 miles north of Dallas and just south of the Texas-Oklahoma border.
"I wasn't there," he said in a recent death row interview. "No way I can be associated with this crime. I know I got framed."
He said Wednesday all his appeals had been exhausted.
Murphy had a previous record for theft in Grayson County and was paroled in May 1985 to McAlester, Okla., after serving 61/2 months of a three-year prison term.
| Also Online | ||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
A week after the Denning slaying, he was arrested in Hugo, Okla., on two counts of shooting with intent to kill. Murphy said he was responding to someone who shot at him.
"I was wrong for having a gun," he said. "But that's what happens when you're weak. To me, I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. It's a case of bad luck. I know I didn't kill nobody. I'm not a killer."
A Murphy accomplice, Douglas Stoff, also was convicted of her slaying but received a life term.
Police were summoned to Denning's home after she couldn't be reached by phone.
"I remember a little old lady sitting in her chair with her blood splattered all over the wall and the ceiling and dripping down on the newspaper," Jarvis said. "She died in her own chair in her own living room. It was horrible.
"They took either her cane and or a sawed-off shotgun they brought with them and just beat her as she sat in her chair."
The investigation showed Stoff and Murphy were at Stoff's house sniffing paint and doing drugs and went to Murphy's old neighborhood, where he was known as "Pee Wee," to rob her. According to Murphy's statement to police, they went to steal her purse and because she knew him, she invited them in and offered him the ice cream.
At some point, she was attacked and robbed of jewelry, including a $7,000 wedding ring that another man said he bought the next morning from Murphy, Jarvis said. Evidence also showed the attackers may have returned to the woman's house a second time.
"Police took advantage of me because I was in a drunken stupor," Murphy said of his comments to officers who questioned him about the slaying.
"Why would we pick Ivan Ray Murphy to pin a murder on?" Jarvis asks, dismissing the inmate's claims. "I feel very confident we have the correct individual that did the crime. I don't have any problems with this verdict at all."
Ice cream -- Blue Bell Moollennium Crunch -- was on a lengthy final meal request Murphy submitted to Texas prison officials. Spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said while the prison system did have Blue Bell ice cream, it was unlikely the premium flavor he wanted was available.
Wednesday night, 61-year-old Richard Duncan was put to death for killing an elderly Houston couple 16 years ago in a scheme to share their life insurance proceeds. Three more Texas inmates are set to die on consecutive nights next week.
Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dallas/tsw/stories/120403dntexexecute.6ba90dc2.html