Killer of Arlington optometrist set to die

Associated Press ^ | July 23, 2003 | Associated Press Staff

[MeekOneGOP]

Killer of Arlington optometrist set to die

07/23/2003

Associated Press

HUNTSVILLE, Texas - The long day of jury selection was over and everyone in the Tarrant County courtroom was somewhat relaxed when accused killer Cedric Ransom made his move.

With a 51/2-inch piece of broken glass taped at one end and hidden in his hand, the capital murder defendant tried to stab one of his attorneys in the back. Ignoring orders from a bailiff to back off, Ransom turned his attention to a nearby prosecutor.

"He was coming at me and his words were very clear: 'I'm going to kill you! I'm going to kill you!"' recalled Bob Gill, now a state district judge in Tarrant County. "He got to me and the fight was on. He and I went down. I knew what was in his hand and I grabbed that arm with both my hands."

Neither Gill nor the other attorney, Chris Phillips, was seriously hurt in the November 1992 attack but both were removed from the case.

Also Online

	Texas Executions: Coverage from TXCN.com
	Offender profile: Cedric Ransom
Related links
	Texas Department of Criminal Justice
	Scheduled executions
	Offenders on death row

Ransom went on to trial and was convicted of capital murder for gunning down Herbert Primm, 47, an optometrist and part-time gun dealer, outside Primm's Arlington home Dec. 7, 1991. Ransom was 18 at the time.

Gill wound up being a witness to help show how Ransom was a continuing threat, one of the questions jurors had to answer when determining a death sentence.

Ransom's lethal injection was set to be carried out Wednesday evening.

Ransom, 29, would be the 19th Texas inmate executed this year and the first of two on consecutive nights.

"He was a bad guy," said Richard Bland, one of the prosecutors who worked to convict Ransom. "He was involved with four capital murders in 17 days, robberies of convenience stores.

"Most people go to an ATM to get cash, he'd go to convenience stores and not leave any witnesses."

Ransom's death sentence was overturned in 1994 when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled his trial judge improperly excluded a potential juror. Prosecutors returned him to court in 1997 for another sentencing trial where, against his lawyers' advice, he took the stand, denied he was guilty of the Primm slaying but confessed to multiple convenience store murders.

The second jury sentenced him to death.

In an appeal awaiting a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court, Ransom contended he was mentally retarded, making him ineligible for execution under a high court ruling in another case last year.

Testimony showed Ransom and three companions went to Primm's house to look at some guns. Primm, who held a federal firearms license, opened the trunk of his car and the four pulled out their own weapons. According to testimony, Primm told the gun thieves to "just take them" but Ransom bent him over the hood of the car and then shot Primm once in the head with a .44-caliber pistol. He was arrested three days later.

While locked up in Fort Worth, records showed he attacked a jailer. And while on death row outside Huntsville, he and a second condemned inmate used a hacksaw blade to cut through a fence in 1997, climbed to the roof of the prison, then were making a run across an open area to try to scale a pair of perimeter fences when they were spotted by an officer who ordered them to halt.

"There is no question at all," said Gill. "This is one of the more dangerous guys I've come across in 20 years in the criminal courts."

Ransom, a ninth-grade dropout, declined to speak with reporters from death row in the weeks leading up to his scheduled punishment. His three companions during the Primm slaying also are in prison, serving terms of at least 20 years.

"We had a couple of the codefendants to testify against him," Gill said. "We had information that connected him to the operation before hand and connected him to the murder weapon. One or more of the guns stolen from the victim were found at his residence.

"It turned out all right. He got what I feel he deserved."

On Thursday evening, Allen Wayne Janecka faces lethal injection for being the hitman in a murder-for-hire plot that left four members of a Houston family dead. Among the victims was 14-month-old Kevin Wanstrath, who was fatally shot in his crib in 1979.

---

Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/072303dntexexecute.b7d01c45.html

[MeekOneGOP]

Texas Dept of Criminal Justice
450 Offenders are Currently on Death Row

He** isn't hot enough for this one. Read the article!

Now being served:

[WestPacSailor]

I'll pitch in for the cost of the execution. Just tell me where to send the check.

[MeSpikeLibs]

In an appeal awaiting a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court, Ransom contended he was mentally retarded, making him ineligible for execution under a high court ruling in another case last year.


He was Mentally retarded, I did not know that went away. That is why last years Supreme Court ruling was retarded.

[MeekOneGOP]

This is the meanest SO* I think I've ever posted about.
This is just a SMALL tidbit. Read the full article.

Killer of Arlington optometrist set to die

Excerpt

With a 51/2-inch piece of broken glass taped at one end and hidden in his hand, the capital murder defendant tried to stab one of his attorneys in the back. Ignoring orders from a bailiff to back off, Ransom turned his attention to a nearby prosecutor.

"He was coming at me and his words were very clear: 'I'm going to kill you! I'm going to kill you!"' recalled Bob Gill, now a state district judge in Tarrant County. "He got to me and the fight was on. He and I went down. I knew what was in his hand and I grabbed that arm with both my hands."

Neither Gill nor the other attorney, Chris Phillips, was seriously hurt in the November 1992 attack but both were removed from the case.

Ransom went on to trial and was convicted of capital murder for gunning down Herbert Primm, 47, an optometrist and part-time gun dealer, outside Primm's Arlington home Dec. 7, 1991. Ransom was 18 at the time.

Gill wound up being a witness to help show how Ransom was a continuing threat, one of the questions jurors had to answer when determining a death sentence.

Ransom's lethal injection was set to be carried out Wednesday evening.

Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my Texas Executions ping list!. . .don't be shy.

[MeekOneGOP]

[LibWhacker]

He's getting off way too easy and he's been allowed to live way too long. The least his executioners can do is switch the lines and make him suffer a little.

The world will be a better place tomorrow.

[MeekOneGOP]

Recent execution threads:

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[MeekOneGOP]

http://www.prodeathpenalty.com/Pending/03/jul03.htm

Date of scheduled execution	State	Victim name	Inmate name	Status
July 23, 2003	Texas	Herbert Primm	Cedric Ransom	pending
Cedric Ransom, the convicted killer of an optometrist who authorities say once attacked his lawyer and a prosecutor with a knife, was sentenced to death in a heavily guarded courtroom in Fort Worth. Jurors deliberated a little more than 2 hours before returning the verdict, the 2nd death sentence that Ransom received. The Fort Worth man's original death sentence was erased in 1994 when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that his trial judge made an error in jury selection. Ransom was convicted of capital murder in 1992 for the robbery and slaying of Herbert Primm, who was shot to death in his driveway. At the time, Ransom was under indictment for 3 other murders and robberies. Ransom and three accomplices went to Primm's house on Dec. 7, 1991, planning to steal guns from the optometrist and part-time weapons dealer, according to trial testimony. Primm begged the men to take the guns and spare his life, but Ransom shot him in the head, prosecution witnesses testified. In closing arguments at the second trial in February of 1997, Assistant District Attorney Richard Bland rattled off the list of convictions and charges against Ransom. He said Ransom smuggled a crude knife into his 1992 trial, using it to attack his lawyer and a prosecutor, and had assaulted a corrections officer in the Forth Worth jail. Ransom and fellow death row inmate Willie Pondexter made an escape attempt in June 1997 -- cutting through a fence at the Ellis I Unit with a hacksaw blade, climbing onto the roof and making a run for the two perimeter fences. The attempt was foiled when a guard spotted the inmates and ordered them to stop. Both did.

[jimt]

Permanent rehabilitations are a good thing.

[Erasmus]

He's getting off way too easy and he's been allowed to live way too long. The least his executioners can do is switch the lines and make him suffer a little.

Sit him in a three-phase chair and connect 'em out of sequence.

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

With a 51/2-inch piece of broken glass taped at one end and hidden in his hand, the capital murder defendant tried to stab one of his attorneys in the back.>>

Are you sure this is a crime in Texas?

[camle]

how did he get the glass in the first place? did his attorney give it to him? he was in jail, remember?

[No Truce With Kings]

Say hello to Uday and Qusay, when you see them Edric-Say.

[Tall_Texan]

Couldn't they just stab him with the needle a few times before they let out the juice? Sounds like he deserves it.

[Tall_Texan]

On Thursday evening, Allen Wayne Janecka faces lethal injection for being the hitman in a murder-for-hire plot that left four members of a Houston family dead. Among the victims was 14-month-old Kevin Wanstrath, who was fatally shot in his crib in 1979.

A two-fer! Shooting a baby in a crib - that's just over the top. Another guy named "Wayne" who went astray in life...

[MeekOneGOP]

I don't know how he got the glass. But he'll be getting the juice in about 6.5 hours.

With his history, they better make sure he is tied down very securely.

Bu-bye, Sedric ! Have a HOT time in HE** !! Say HELLo to Qusay and Uday ! Daddy will soon be with them.

[MeekOneGOP]

>
Cedric Ransom


Murderer from Fort Worth executed

He used glass shard to try to stab attorney, prosecutor during trial

07/24/2003

Associated Press

HUNTSVILLE, Texas – A Fort Worth man who attacked one of his own attorneys and a prosecutor during his capital murder trial was executed Wednesday for robbing and fatally shooting a gun dealer, one of four slayings authorities linked him to during a 17-day spree in 1991.

In a brief final statement, Cedric Ransom thanked a friend and spiritual adviser who were present to watch him die.

"You have been beautiful to me. Without you in my life, I would not have been able to make it like this. Probably I would have put up a good fight. You have calmed me," he said.

Mr. Ransom, 29, was the 19th Texas inmate executed this year.

"He was a bad guy," said Richard Bland, one of the Tarrant County prosecutors who tried Mr. Ransom's case.

Besides the Dec. 7, 1991, slaying of optometrist and part-time gun dealer Herbert Primm, Mr. Bland said Mr. Ransom was involved in three fatal robberies of convenience stores.

Also Online

	Texas Executions: Coverage from TXCN.com
Related links
	Texas Department of Criminal Justice
	Scheduled executions
	Offenders on death row

"Most people go to an ATM to get cash," Mr. Bland said. "He'd go to convenience stores and not leave any witnesses."

In late appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, Mr. Ransom contended that he was mentally retarded and should be ineligible for execution. The high court rejected the appeals.

At the conclusion of jury selection during his trial, Mr. Ransom used a smuggled 5 ½-inch piece of broken glass hidden in his hand to try to stab one of his attorneys in the back. Ignoring orders from a bailiff to back off, Mr. Ransom turned his attention to a nearby prosecutor.

"He was coming at me, and his words were very clear: 'I'm going to kill you! I'm going to kill you!' " recalled Bob Gill, now a state district judge in Tarrant County. "He got to me and the fight was on. He and I went down. I knew what was in his hand, and I grabbed that arm with both my hands."

No one was seriously hurt in the November 1992 attack.

Mr. Ransom was later convicted of capital murder for gunning down Mr. Primm, 47, outside Mr. Primm's Arlington home.

Mr. Gill, removed from the case, wound up being a witness to help show how Mr. Ransom was a continuing threat, one of the questions jurors had to answer when determining a death sentence.

Mr. Ransom's death sentence was overturned in 1994 when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that his trial judge improperly excluded a potential juror. Prosecutors returned him to court in 1997 for another sentencing trial in which, against his lawyers' advice, he took the stand, denied he was guilty of the Primm slaying but confessed to multiple convenience-store murders.

The second jury also sentenced him to die.

Testimony showed that Mr. Ransom and three companions went to Mr. Primm's house to look at some guns. Mr. Primm, who held a federal firearms license, opened the trunk of his car – and the four pulled out their own weapons.

According to testimony, Mr. Primm told the gun thieves to "just take them," but Mr. Ransom bent him over the hood of the car and then shot Mr. Primm once in the head with a .44-caliber pistol. He was arrested three days later.

While in jail, he attacked a jailer, records show. And while on death row outside Huntsville in 1997, he and a second condemned inmate used a hacksaw blade to cut through a fence and were on their way to escaping when they were spotted by a guard.

"There is no question at all," Mr. Gill said. "This is one of the more dangerous guys I've come across in 20 years in the criminal courts."

Mr. Ransom's three companions in the Primm slaying also are in prison, serving terms of at least 20 years.

---

Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/072403dntexexecute.a14e.html

[MeekOneGOP]

Full text in #17.

Cedric Ransom


Murderer from Fort Worth executed

He used glass shard to try to stab attorney, prosecutor during trial

07/24/2003

Associated Press

HUNTSVILLE, Texas – A Fort Worth man who attacked one of his own attorneys and a prosecutor during his capital murder trial was executed Wednesday for robbing and fatally shooting a gun dealer, one of four slayings authorities linked him to during a 17-day spree in 1991.

In a brief final statement, Cedric Ransom thanked a friend and spiritual adviser who were present to watch him die.

"You have been beautiful to me. Without you in my life, I would not have been able to make it like this. Probably I would have put up a good fight. You have calmed me," he said.

Mr. Ransom, 29, was the 19th Texas inmate executed this year.

"He was a bad guy," said Richard Bland, one of the Tarrant County prosecutors who tried Mr. Ransom's case.

Besides the Dec. 7, 1991, slaying of optometrist and part-time gun dealer Herbert Primm, Mr. Bland said Mr. Ransom was involved in three fatal robberies of convenience stores.

[dennisw]

Bad to the bone and ready for the lethal dose. Hanging better suits him.

[MeekOneGOP]

Absolutely. The worst that I've posted about, I think.