Bye!
Posted on 08/24/2005 5:54:45 AM PDT by Michael Goldsberry
HUNTSVILLE - A Friendswood man who was 19 when he was arrested for fatally stabbing and beating a woman at her home, then robbing her and taking her car nearly 11 years ago was executed Tuesday.
Robert Alan Shields, 30, was the 12th prisoner executed in Texas this year.
A Galveston County jury condemned him for the killing of Paula Stiner, 27, who had been repeatedly stabbed with a knife from her own kitchen and beaten with a hammer when she was found by her husband as he returned home from work Sept. 21, 1994. The couple had lived at the home in Friendswood, southeast of Houston, for only about three months.
Shields, whose parents lived next door, was arrested three days later.
"The world will be a better place without him, that's for sure," said Michael Guarino, then the Galveston County district attorney, who prosecuted Shields at his capital murder trial in 1995. "It was an extremely vicious, brutal murder.
"It was one of the worst capital murder scenes I've seen, and I've seen many over 20 years as district attorney."
When asked by the warden if he had a final statement, Shields responded twice, saying "No."
He gasped, sputtered and made a slight groan before slipping into unconsciousness. He was pronounced dead eight minutes after receiving the lethal injection, at 6:15 p.m. His parents and his victim's parents were among those who watched the execution.
According to evidence at the trial, Shields' fingerprints and bloody shoeprints were in the laundry room where Stiner's body was found. About 90 minutes after Stiner was killed, Shields used her credit card to buy some clothes. When he was arrested three days later about 50 miles away, he had her car.
Appeals lawyers contended that Shields was trying to defend himself and never intended to kill Stiner, that the self-defense argument never was pursued by his attorneys at trial and that the U.S. Supreme Court should allow him another chance to prove his innocence.
The effort failed. Justices rejected the petition a few hours before Shields' scheduled execution.
Testimony at his trial showed he probably broke in to the Stiners' home using a screwdriver taken from the garage at his parents' house, where unknown to them he spent the night before the slaying in their garage. Shields had moved out earlier, saying he couldn't live under his father's rules after a 1992 theft and burglary arrest resulted in probation, which he ignored.
Police arrested him in The Woodlands, where Shields was living in empty houses.
He had previous arrests for burglary and auto theft, including an auto theft arrest in Florida where he and some friends were accused of driving a stolen car and leaving a shoplifting trail from there to Texas.
His mother testified at his trial that she and Shields' father had changed the locks on their home at least twice to keep him from stealing from them. A social worker testified Shields drank alcohol continuously since he was 14 and focused much of his time since the age of 17 on drugs and alcohol.
At least 10 other Texas inmates have execution dates later this year.
Bye!
Why was't her husband executed, too?........
For finding her dead????
no! for beating her with a hammer! (bad sentence structure from HC editors)
LOL. I saw that too and thought, WTF?
Journalists and Editors now a days have the collective IQ of a sack of rocks.
...and beaten with a hammer when she was found by her husband...
continuing...
...as he returned home from work
He was at work at the time of the murder?
ok...lol...gotcha
Adios MoFo
Bubye!
Oh gee, he was white? I thought only blacks and hispanics were executed, especially in TX, just because of racism.
Consider Houston as a VERY LIBERAL place..........
Apparently he beat her with a hammer on the way home from work........... according to the poor editors......
Why did you post that picture? He looks like a young man I work with! How am I supposed to forget that?
Heh! I don't think this guy is your coworker.
To make sure check his pulse.
Why break into her house & kill her?
Just pure mean/evil?...on drugs?....Why?
Leaving the world no poorer...
Eleven Years! Oh well, at least he was in Texas, not California, otherwise, he would probably have been out on probation by now, looking for another victim.
Gee thanks Florida for letting this P.O.S. loose on the general public to escalate his criminal career up to murder.
His mother testified at his trial that she and Shields' father had changed the locks on their home at least twice to keep him from stealing from them. A social worker testified Shields drank alcohol continuously since he was 14 and focused much of his time since the age of 17 on drugs and alcohol.
Well maybe if the P.O.S.'s parents had acted like parents when this P.O.S. was drinking at 14, he might not have grew up to be a murderer. Maybe if they had the P.O.S. arrested for stealing instead of calling a social worker maybe he would have figured out that a life of crime has consequences rather than always being protected by spineless parents.
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