Posted on 09/26/2007 2:24:28 PM PDT by Dubya
HUNTSVILLE -- More than two decades after a mother of seven was killed in her Harris County home, the man convicted in her slaying was executed Tuesday.
Michael Richard, 49, had at least five felony convictions and had been released from his second prison term just eight weeks before the 1986 murder of Marguerite Lucille Dixon. He was the 26th Texas inmate executed this year.
Asked whether he'd like to make a final statement, Richard said: "I'd like my family to take care of each other. I love you, Angel. Let's ride."
Several seconds later, after the lethal drugs started, Richard blurted out, "I guess this is it." He then gasped and snorted several times and was pronounced dead at 8:23 p.m.
Dixon, a 53-year-old nurse, offered Richard a drink of water after he came up to her house and inquired whether a van parked outside was for sale. The vehicle wasn't, and Richard left, noticing that two of Dixon's children left shortly after he did.
Evidence showed that he returned, raped the woman, fatally shot her, then stole two televisions and drove off in the van.
Richard acknowledged being at Dixon's home in Hockley, accounting for his fingerprint on a sliding glass door. But he said he wasn't responsible for her death.
"I did things in my life I deserved to be locked up for," he said last week from Death Row. "But I didn't kill anybody."
MICHAEL RICHARD
Being nice to people pays off.
Where he’s going, he will be received with open arms.
MICHAEL RICHARDS
Richard was the first of two Texas inmates scheduled to die this week. On Thursday, a Dallas man, Carlton Turner, 28, is set to die for killing his parents in 1998.
LOL
What a stupid way to go into Eternity and face God.
His last words seem to be, “I guess this is it.” But, I guess that’s not as poetic.
He now realizes this ride is very hot and lasts forever.
Nor was it as pointed or as flashy as Gary Gilmore’s “Let’s Do It” when facing a firing squad in 1978.
Amazing how these animals suddenly develop tender family feelings right there at the end.
Back in the '30s my husband's grandma used to feed the hobos at the local tracks. They were allowed in the house, fed, and sent on their way. One day one of them was being a Peeping Tom. When the police showed up my husband's grandpa was outside beating the hobo. Not something you could get away with these days.
They should video tape this execution and send it to the Supreme Court as evidence that lethal injection is painless.
If it was his last words would be unprintable.
Bye Bye and thanks for visiting the Texas Department of Corrections.
Now I know that Texas is huge compared to NH and that the culture is kinda different there and all. But the last time we put anybody to death in this state was 1938, for crying out loud. I find it hard to believe that in almost 70 years, not one crime has been committed here that should have drawn that kind of punishment.
Back about the same time period, my wife’s grandfather caught a peeping pervert peering through his daughter’s (my wife’s aunt’s) bedroom window. Two rounds from a shotgun put a (permanent) end to that nonsense ...
He looks like a cross between James Carville and, and, and....
Help me out, here.
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal from a 28-year-old Honduran man who is scheduled to be executed next week for the 2001 robbery and fatal shooting of a south Arlington clothing store manager.
Heliberto Chi was sentenced to die Oct. 3 by lethal injection for robbing and killing Armand Paliotta, 56, at the K&G Men's Superstore in southwest Arlington.
I hope your husband’s grandpa beat him up really good.
All the way to outer darkness.
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