Texas Executes Killer of 2 Charles Victor Thompson, 55, becomes the first person executed in the US this year
This photo provided by Texas Department of Criminal Justice. shows Texas death row inmate Charles Victor Thompson. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP)
A Texas man who once escaped custody and evaded authorities for three days after receiving a death sentence was executed Wednesday, becoming the first person put to death in the United States this year.
Charles Victor Thompson, 55, was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m. CST after receiving a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, according to the Associated Press. Thompson was convicted in the April 1998 killings of his former girlfriend, Glenda Dennise Hayslip, 39, and her boyfriend, Darren Keith Cain, 30, at Hayslip’s apartment in suburban Houston.
Court records show that Hayslip and Cain were dating when Thompson arrived at the apartment around 3 a.m. and became involved in an argument with Cain. Police were called to the scene and ordered Thompson to leave the apartment complex. Authorities said he returned approximately three hours later and shot both victims. Cain died at the scene, while Hayslip succumbed to her injuries a week later at a hospital.
“The Hayslip and Cain families have waited over twenty-five years for justice to occur,” prosecutors with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office said in court filings.
Roughly an hour before the execution was scheduled to take place, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a brief order denying Thompson’s final appeal without explanation. Earlier in the week, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles also rejected his request to have his death sentence commuted to a lesser punishment.
In filings before the Supreme Court, Thompson’s attorneys argued that he was denied the opportunity to challenge the prosecution’s medical evidence, which concluded that Hayslip died as a result of a gunshot wound to the face. Defense attorneys claimed Hayslip instead died from complications related to medical treatment following the shooting, including brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation during a failed intubation.
Prosecutors countered that a jury had already considered and rejected that argument, determining under state law that Thompson was responsible for Hayslip’s death because it would not have occurred without his actions.
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