Fuller executed for murder of Tyler man
Associated Press
HUNTSVILLE — Condemned prisoner Justin Fuller quietly went to his death this evening for the abduction, robbery and fatal shooting of a Tyler man nine years ago.
In a brief statement, Fuller thanked his family and friends for their support.
``Let everyone know that you must stay strong for each other,'' he said. ``Take care of yourselves.''
He told the warden standing next to him, ``That's it.''
As the lethal drugs began to take effect, he looked at his parents watching through a window a few feet away and said, ``I love you.''
The parents and a sister of his victim watched through an adjacent window, but he didn't acknowledge them.
Eight minutes later, at 6:18 p.m., he was pronounced dead.
About 4½ hours before the execution, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal to review his case and halt the punishment. Only two of the nine justices - Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens - voted for a reprieve.
In the appeal, Fuller's lawyers contended his trial attorneys were ineffective and failed to tell him about a proposed plea bargain that would have spared him from a death sentence.
Fuller acknowledged being in the vicinity when 21-year-old Donald Whittington III was killed at Lake Tyler in the early morning hours of April 21, 1997, but he said he didn't fire the fatal shots with a .22-caliber pistol and didn't show off the body later to friends.
Whittington's remains weren't discovered by police until four days after he went missing.
Authorities said by then numerous people had gone to see the body, which became the subject of conversation at Tyler's Chapel Hill High School. A student at the school, which Whittington, Fuller and two other people convicted in the slaying had attended, overheard some of the talk and called police.
The case inspired passage of a state law making it a crime to know about a dead body and remain silent about it.
Fuller said in a recent interview with the Associated Press he couldn't express regrets about the killing.
"If I have regrets, it means I done it," he said.
Three others convicted in the case are serving long prison terms.
Samhermundre Wideman, of Tyler, and Elaine Hays, of Red Springs, have life sentences. Wideman was 21 when arrested and Hays 25. Brent Bates Chandler, 19 at the time of the killing, accepted 25 years and testified against Fuller.
Fuller and Wideman lived in the same apartment complex as Whittington. Prosecutors said the robbery plot was hatched by Hays, Wideman's girlfriend, who believed Whittington had received $15,000 from a trust fund when he turned 21.
Hays' lawyers at her trial blamed the scheme on the three men.
Fuller said they went to Whittington's place to retrieve rings Hays gave him in exchange for some cash. Once there, Whittington was sprayed with a tear gas, blindfolded, had his hands and feet tied and was threatened with death if he didn't surrender his ATM card and password. Chandler took clothing and items from Whittington's apartment and the other assailants threw Whittington in the back seat of his own car, drove to a bank and withdrew about $300, then went to the lake area where Whittington was killed.
Fuller told police he was urinating in the lake at the time of the shooting. His companions disputed his story.
"They said I was the triggerman," said Fuller, who blamed Wideman for the shooting. Whittington's ATM card was found in Fuller's wallet.
According to court records, Fuller took friends to see body the day after the shooting and detailed his involvement. From death row, Fuller denied that.
Fuller, whose 28th birthday would have been next week, became the 19th inmate executed this year in Texas, matching the total executions in the state for all of 2005. At least seven condemned prisoners have death dates through the end of the year.
If all are carried out, however, the total would be well short of the record 40 inmates put to death in 2000 in Texas, the nation's most active capital punishment state.
Scheduled to die next is Derrick Frazier, 29, set for execution Aug. 31 for the slaying nine years ago of a woman and her son at their home on a ranch in Refugio County in South Texas. Jermaine Herron, a companion of Frazier's also convicted in the double murder, was executed in May.