Thursday, October 19, 2006

forgive me, Michael !!!

Texas inmate kills self, leaves message in blood

Oct 19, 2006

A Texas death row inmate killed himself on Thursday, leaving a message scrawled in his own blood, hours before he was to be executed for a 1995 murder, a Texas prison spokeswoman said.

Michael Johnson, 29, was found dead at 2:45 a.m. lying in a pool of blood after he used a makeshift metal blade to cut his jugular vein and an artery in his right arm, Texas prison spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said.

She confirmed that a message written in blood was found on Johnson's cell wall, but would not disclose its contents, pending an investigation into the death.

Texas prison system sources said Johnson wrote, "I DIDN'T DO IT."

Johnson, who was set to be executed at 6 p.m., was convicted and sentenced to die for the September 10, 1995, shooting death of Jeff Wetterman, 27, during a convenience store robbery in the central Texas town of Lorena.

Johnson denied that he shot Wetterman, blaming it instead on accomplice David Vest, who pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery and testified against Johnson. Vest served an eight-year prison sentence and is now free.

The suicide occurred despite close vigilance on death row, where guards check every 15 minutes on inmates facing imminent execution.

Lyons said Johnson spoke with a prison guard at 2:30 a.m. while eating his breakfast. Fifteen minutes later, he was found in his cell and taken to a nearby hospital, where he was declared dead, Lyons said.

She said there had been no indication Johnson was contemplating suicide.Lyons said there have been "a handful" of previous suicides on Texas death row, but none so close to execution.

Texas leads the nation in capital punishment with 376 executions since 1982, six years after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a national death penalty ban.

Johnson would have been the 22nd person executed by the state this year.

Death row prisoners are held in a high-security prison at Livingston, Texas, about 45 miles east of Huntsville, where the state's death chamber is located.

About midday, Johnson would have been taken to Huntsville to await a lethal injection. His execution was not a certainty because his lawyer still had two motions pending before the U.S. Supreme Court to halt it, a spokesman for the Texas Attorney General's office said.

There are currently 390 people on the state's death row.

© Copyright Reuters 2006

i have no words .....
WE MUST KILL DEATH PENALTY !!!

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Também me tocou até doer !!
nem tenho palavras ...
Vai dormir, ouviste ??
Beijos e abraços

10/20/2006 1:31 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sometimes in this
World of dread
The last messages
Are left in tragedy
And red ....

(Silvis)

10/29/2006 9:17 PM  

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