State plans to execute three killers this week
Posted on 11/18/2002 5:09:14 AM PST by MeekOneGOP
State plans to execute three killers this week
Texas on pace to log capital punishment in 34 cases for '02
11/18/2002
HUNTSVILLE, Texas - A convicted cop killer and two men condemned for multiple murders face execution this week on three consecutive nights as the Texas death chamber is readied for its busiest week in almost two years.
"It's become an assembly line of death," said Craig Ogan, the first of the three men set to die.
If the three injections are carried out, and if two other punishments set for December take place, Texas would finish with 34 executions this year.
That would be double the total of a year ago but in line with the 30-plus executions in recent years - 37 in 1997, 35 in 1999 and a record 40 in 2000.
The condemned
This week's condemned offenders are:
- Mr. Ogan, 47, Tuesday evening for the 1989 slaying of Houston police Officer James Boswell.
- William Chappell, 66, Wednesday for a 1989 shooting spree that left three people dead as they slept in their Fort Worth home. Mr. Chappell would be the oldest person put to death in Texas since the state resumed carrying out capital punishment in December 1982.
- James Lee Clark, 34, Thursday for the 1993 shooting, rape, robbery and murder of a 17-year-old Denton high school student. Another teenager was slain in the same episode.
Mr. Ogan, who says he longed for a job with the CIA, worked as a confidential informant for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, primarily in St. Louis, but moved to Houston in late 1989. After an armed confrontation with a drug dealer in a Houston restaurant, he called federal authorities for help and they arranged for police to house him in a motel.
On the night of Dec. 9, 1989, he got into an argument with the motel clerk over phone charges and the temperature of his room, walked outside and spotted a police car where Officers Boswell and Morgan Gainer were writing a traffic ticket.
Mr. Ogan, described at his trial as having an explosive temper, interrupted the officers repeatedly and refused their instructions to wait a few minutes. When he persisted, testimony showed, Officer Boswell got out of the car, his gun out but held down at his side, and was shot in the head by Mr. Ogan. Mr. Ogan tried running away but surrendered after he was shot and wounded in the back by Officer Gainer.
Mr. Ogan, speaking from death row, blamed Officer Boswell for the shooting and contended that his action was in self-defense.
Mr. Chappell was convicted of the shooting spree that killed Alexandra Heath, 27; her mother, Martha Lindsey, 50; and Ms. Lindsey's husband, Elbert Sitton, 71. Testimony showed that the May 3, 1988, gunfire at a Fort Worth home was in vengeance for Mr. Chappell's conviction in a child molestation case the previous year. He had been dating Ms. Heath's sister and was convicted of molesting the woman's 3-year-old daughter.
That conviction was on appeal at the time of the shootings, and prosecutors suggested that Ms. Lindsey and Ms. Heath were slain to remove them as witnesses.
Evidence also showed Mr. Chappell tried to burn down the house earlier in 1988 and threatened to have his former wife killed for testifying against him.
Mr. Chappell, who has declined to speak with reporters in the weeks leading up to his scheduled execution, had his first capital murder conviction thrown out by an appeals court, which ruled that his jury was selected improperly. A second trial was stopped by a mistrial. In 1996, at his third trial, a jury again convicted him and decided he should be put to death.
Oldest prisoner
At age 66, he would be four years older than Clydell Coleman, put to death in 1999 for beating a Waco woman with a hammer then strangling her during a burglary, and Betty Beets, also 62, executed in 2000 for killing her fifth husband and burying his body under a flower garden.
Mr. Clark was on parole after serving less than a year of a 10-year term for burglary in Dallas County when he was arrested in the rape and fatal shooting of Catherine Crews, 17, a Denton high school student, and the death of her companion, Jesus Gilberto Garza, 16, also a student. Both were shot in the head the night of June 7, 1993, and their bodies were dumped in Clear Creek, north of Denton.
An accomplice, James Brown, received a 20-year term for robbery. Mr. Clark, who also would not speak with reporters as his execution date approached, received a death sentence. Each blamed the other for the killings. DNA evidence tied Mr. Clark to the rape.
Excerpt:
"It's become an assembly line of death," said Craig Ogan, the first of the three men set to die.
< snip >
Mr. Ogan, who says he longed for a job with the CIA, worked as a confidential informant for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, primarily in St. Louis, but moved to Houston in late 1989. After an armed confrontation with a drug dealer in a Houston restaurant, he called federal authorities for help and they arranged for police to house him in a motel.
On the night of Dec. 9, 1989, he got into an argument with the motel clerk over phone charges and the temperature of his room, walked outside and spotted a police car where Officers Boswell and Morgan Gainer were writing a traffic ticket.
Mr. Ogan, described at his trial as having an explosive temper, interrupted the officers repeatedly and refused their instructions to wait a few minutes. When he persisted, testimony showed, Officer Boswell got out of the car, his gun out but held down at his side, and was shot in the head by Mr. Ogan. Mr. Ogan tried running away but surrendered after he was shot and wounded in the back by Officer Gainer.
Mr. Ogan, speaking from death row, blamed Officer Boswell for the shooting and contended that his action was in self-defense.
Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my Texas ping list!. . .don't be shy.
No, you don't HAVE to be a Texan to get on this list!
With 1331 murders in Texas last year (http://www.cjpc.state.tx.us/stattabs/crimeintexas/00CrimeSection_U.pdf), 34 isn't nearly enough...but it's a start, I guess.
Us Texans appreciate efficient government.
They can do better ---why not try to break records. They should at least keep up with population growth.
Recidivism rate = 0%
Ogan was 34 when he committed his crime. That was 13 years ago.....Chappell was 53. That was 13 years ago. Clark was 25. That was 9 years ago.
And don't you just hate when they call them 'Mr.'?
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