Texas Man Executed for Killing Wife, Her Boyfriend

Texas Man Executed for Killing Wife, Her Boyfriend

 

By MICHAEL GRACZYK Associated Press

HUNTSVILLE, Texas March 8, 2012 (AP)

A Texas man was put to death Wednesday for fatally shooting his estranged wife and her boyfriend more than 10 years ago outside Houston.

Keith Thurmond was pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m. — 11 minutes after lethal drugs began flowing into his arms.

The execution of the 52-year-old Thurmond came about an hour after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected arguments to halt the capital punishment, the third this year in Texas.

Thurmond's attorneys argued that lawyers representing him in earlier appeals were "grossly deficient" and that his execution should have been postponed until justices decide on a similar case in Arizona.

"All I want to say is I'm innocent," Thurmond said from the death chamber gurney. "I didn't kill my wife."

AP

This undated handout photo provided by the... View Full Caption

He blamed the shooting deaths on another man. "I swear to God I didn't kill her," he said.

With that, he told prison officials: "Go ahead and finish it off." And as the drugs began flowing, he said, "You can taste it." He wheezed and snored before losing consciousness.

The killings occurred after sheriff's deputies showed up at Thurmond's mobile home on Sept. 25, 2001, with a court order removing his 8-year-old son and putting the boy in the care of his mother.

Thurmond became irate and stormed down the road to the mobile home where his 32-year-old wife, Sharon, was living with her new boyfriend, Guy Fernandes, 35, near Magnolia in Montgomery County.

Thurmond's brother, Tom, who was at Thurmond's home, heard gunshots and looked out the door. He saw Thurmond standing over his wife with a gun in his hand.

At the 2002 capital murder trial, Keith and Sharon Thurmond's son testified that he saw his father shoot his mother repeatedly in the yard behind Fernandes' mobile home.

Thurmond surrendered to police after a two-hour standoff.