Posted on 08/30/2006 4:15:36 PM PDT by Dubya
LIVINGSTON -- Betsy Nutt thought she was being nice to the two young men who showed up at her family's South Texas mobile home and said they had car trouble and needed to make a phone call. ADVERTISEMENT
She even served them iced tea on the hot afternoon nine summers ago and offered to drive them in her pickup truck the 10 miles to town.
For her courtesies, the 41-year-old woman got two bullets in the head. Her 15-year-old son, Cody, was shot four times, including two shots to the head. Jerry Nutt found the bodies of his wife and son when he arrived to his Refugio County home after work that day, June 26, 1997.
Derrick Frazier, 29, one of the two men condemned for their slayings, was set to die Thursday evening. His partner, Jermaine Herron, was executed three months ago in the same death chamber in Huntsville.
"I can't wait for Frazier's execution," Jerry Nutt said after watching Herron die May 17. "We'll be here with bells on. It's what we've been waiting for, for nine years."
Frazier, who was born in Dallas but grew up in Galveston, would be the 20th Texas prisoner executed this year, one more than all of last year in the nation's busiest capital punishment state.
His lawyers went to the U.S. Supreme Court to try to stop the lethal injection, alleging jury misconduct at his trial.
"I'm innocent," Frazier, also known by his Muslim name, Hasan al-Shakur, said last week from death row near Livingston. "I wasn't there. I did not commit the crime. I've been saying that for the last nine years. Nothing has changed."
Frazier was scheduled to die April 27, three weeks before Herron, but won a reprieve from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. When the court lifted its reprieve two months later, the execution was reset for Thursday.
"The only thing they have was this so-called confession, which was a coerced or forced confession," Frazier said. "You remember Perry Mason and Matlock, those TV shows? That's what this whole case seems like. But I don't think Perry Mason could deal with this. It's crazy."
Frazier, who did not testify in court, insisted the physical evidence all pointed to Herron.
Herron testified in his own defense, saying he wasn't at the house and that Frazier was solely responsible.
But jurors convicted both and decided they should be put to death.
According to court records, Frazier and Herron showed up at a home near the Nutt residence and inquired about work. Frazier's father once had been a ranch foreman in the area.
During the visit, they spotted guns in the house and decided to return to steal them. Evidence showed they came back the next day when the people who lived there were gone, broke in, sat around drinking in the house and watched as Betsy Nutt drove up to her place. Then they walked over and told her the story about their car breaking down.
"Frazier admitted in his confession he was the one who murders Betsy Nutt and that Herron had murdered Cody Nutt," Michael Sheppard, the Refugio County district attorney who prosecuted both men, said. "And Herron in his confession made the same admissions."
After the shooting, they used her truck to carry loot from the neighbor's house, including some clothing Frazier was wearing when he was arrested in Victoria, about 30 miles to the north. The truck was found parked outside Frazier's apartment and items taken from the burglary were recovered from his girlfriend. Frazier's fingerprints were inside the truck.
Frazier had an earlier conviction for aggravated assault for shooting a man and a juvenile conviction for robbery. When he was arrested for the Nutt killings, he had assault charges pending against him.
"I've been in trouble before," he said. "I don't sit up here and try to perpetrate to the people I'm an angel."
Earlier in the year, Frazier and Herron had cells near one another in an area of the Polunsky Unit known as "death watch," reserved for inmates with pending execution dates.
"I got a chance to talk with him," Frazier said. "He apologized for dragging me through a lot of this stuff."
Scheduled to die after Frazier is Farley Matchett, 43, facing lethal injection Sept. 12 for a robbery-slaying in Houston 15 years ago.
There are more innocent IN prison, than out of it!!!!
On June 26, 1997, Frazier and one co-defendant burglarized a private residence. Then they took the property and went next door to a residence where a white female was alone with her son. The victim offered them a ride into town and when she went out to start her vehicle, Frazier followed her. When she went back into the house, he shot her in the face with a 9-millimeter handgun. He then shot her again in the back of the head. The co-defendant shot the son one time in the head and three more times in the chest and abdominal area with a 9-millimeter handgun. Frazier and the co-defendant then took Nutt’s pickup and fled the scene.
"There are more innocent IN prison, than out of it!!!!"
LOL!!!!
Can I help in the execution of this guilty individual?
Say hello to Tookie for me.
Yay! He's on the superhighway to Hell!
Come to think of it, shouldn't he be happy to be martyred?
"Frazier admitted in his confession he was the one who murders Betsy Nutt and that Herron had murdered Cody Nutt," Michael Sheppard, the Refugio County district attorney who prosecuted both men, said. "And Herron in his confession made the same admissions."
Works for me: (stick!) pfffft!
Give my regards to Atta.
I got booted off another board for Tookie references last year. It didn't matter....Tookie still dead.
I wasn't there?...well ya better check your fingers cause somebody's using them
Doogle
Getting a little warm?
Ping to you.
Perpetrate Ping!
"well ya better check your fingers cause somebody's using them."
Here shortly, they'll be meat-sticks for grubs. A victim of his upbringing. A tragedy not to have done this earlier in his upbringing.
Yup..and a little howya do to Zack while yer there.
No need to take blankets..It'll be real warm where you're headed.
"...yet I am very self concious about my situation and would like to pursue any and all sources that will eventually aid me in my unfortunate situation."
How about the victim and her son whom you ventilated? Thinks they would have liked aid in their unfortunate situation, you crack-head horse-turd eating scum??
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