Posted on 06/20/2006 6:23:11 PM PDT by Dubya
HUNTSVILLE — Proclaiming his innocence, an admitted drug dealer was executed Tuesday evening for a shooting spree that left three men dead and two others wounded outside a Fort Worth convenience store more than seven years ago.
Lamont Reese, 28, had to be carried into the death chamber.
"I want everyone to know I did not walk to this because this is straight-up murder," he said. "I am not going to play a part in my own murder. No one should have to do that."
He expressed love to his mother and to relatives of the murder victims as they watched from separate windows nearby.
"I do not know all of your names and I don't know how you feel about me," he said addressing the victims' relatives. "And whether you believe it or not, I did not kill them."
He said that he was at peace and he wanted them to be at peace.
"You have to move past it. It is time to move on," he said.
He said he was glad that the execution was occurring and that his time on death row was not "10 or 20 years."
As the drugs began taking effect, he said, "This is some nasty." Then he gasped.
At that moment, his mother, Brenda Reese, began pounding with her fists on the chamber window and began screaming repeatedly, "They killed my baby."
She kicked two holes in the death chamber wall and eventually was removed from the chamber. She sobbed loudly as she walked from the prison and nearly collapsed as she reached the prison administration building across the street.
Reese was pronounced dead at 6:27 p.m., eight minutes after the drugs began to flow.
He was the 12th inmate executed this year in the nation's busiest capital punishment state.
Reese, who described himself as "no angel" and acknowledged dealing crack cocaine for years, contended in an earlier interview he wasn't involved in the gunfire outside the convenience store the evening of March 1, 1999.
Anthony Roney, 26, Riki Jackson, 17, and Alonzo Stewart, 25, were killed. A 24-year-old man and 13-year-old boy were wounded.
"I was not at the crime," Reese insisted.
Reese's lawyers went to the federal courts to try to block the punishment, citing among their claims a U.S. Supreme Court ruling a week ago that condemned prisoners can file special appeals challenging the lethal injection method under a federal civil rights law after exhausting regular appeals. The high court, however, said inmates would not always be entitled to delays in their executions.
In Reese's case, the justices rejected his appeals about 20 minutes before he was scheduled to be taken to the death chamber.
Evidence at Reese's trial showed his 18-year-old girlfriend, Kareema Kimbrough, walked out of the convenience store about four miles southeast of downtown Fort Worth and drew the attention of several men who were drinking and playing dice outside the place. Reese became angry with the men flirting with Kimbrough.
The couple left, met up with three others, including a pair of juveniles, and armed themselves with handguns and assault rifles. With Kimbrough driving and accompanied also by her 2-year-old son, she dropped off the four near the store.
The gunmen then sprayed the scene with bullets. Kimbrough drove back around, retrieved her friends and they all sped off.
Police were told by the victim of another shooting of people bragging about the convenience store gunfire. That led to the arrests of Reese, Kimbrough and their companions. Detectives found ammunition in Reese's car that matched bullets found at the shooting scene.
Sean Colston, one of the Tarrant County district attorneys who prosecuted Reese, said evidence was clear that Reese was responsible for the slayings.
"When you're dealing with capital punishment, it's not that you get a sense of satisfaction," he said. "I feel it's a just punishment."
Reese grew up in Louisiana where he said he spent much of his childhood in state custody after his mother was sent to prison,
Kimbrough, now 26, is serving a life prison term on a capital murder conviction. The three others, including the two juveniles who were charged as adults, agreed to plea bargains and are serving sentences ranging from 35 to 50 years.
Scheduled to die next in Texas is serial killer Angel Maturino Resendiz, a former FBI Ten Most Wanted fugitive, set for lethal injection June 27 for the fatal stabbing of Houston-area physician Claudia Benton in December 1998.
Benton is among at least 15 victims police in Texas, California, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and Illinois have linked to Resendiz, who became known as the "Railroad Killer" because many of the attacks were near railroad tracks and because he was known to hop on freight trains to travel around the United States.
HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Houston & Texas This article is: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/3987757.html
I don't understand? What did you think I was bragging about?
Expanding on that...I found my husband's aunt raped, murdered and stuffed in the trunk of her car. She was 86 years old. We don't have the death penalty in Michigan, but I'll tell ya, when I found her, (and the cops had screwed up ROYALLY when I called them) I will never forget it. If I think about it, I can still smell the smell. Something that I never want to experience ever again.
If her having to "Live with the knowledge of what she has done" really was worse than her being executed, why is she and the people who care about her fighting her execution so hard?
Not you, CindyDawg, I'm referring to your link. :)
Honestly, I haven't kept up much with her since she went to prison.
Oh ok. Yeah. Not a very smart thing to say.
ping
I think it's part of Rick Perry's Trans-Texas Corridor project.
There is a difference between grieving and lying.
Her new trial starts soon.
Your story is heart wrenching. I'm so, so sorry for what you, your husband's aunt and your family had to go through. Did they catch the murdering scum?
Thanks for the ping, CD.
"I was not at the crime," Reese insisted.
It is hard for many of us to understand, but there is a class of people who make lies such a big part of their lives, they actually begin to believe their own lies.
Also something terrible, my children were nearby when I found her. (They were little, so they don't remember too much.) It was one of the most horrible things that I have ever seen. I see it and I smell it if I think about it.
I'm at a loss for words. I bet you're afraid to close your eyes at night. There are some things that once they get into your head, they just won't leave. What a lifelong nightmare. Again, I'm so very sorry. I'll be thinking about you today.
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