Killer of nurse during robbery executed
HUNTSVILLE, TX
Perry, 28, mouthed to relatives and friends watching through a
window that he loved them.
"I want to start off to everyone involved in this atrocity,
they're all forgiven by me," he said in a brief statement from the
death chamber gurney.
He lifted his head from the pillow and his voice cracking, cried
out: "Mom, I love you."
"I'm coming home Dad. I'm coming home," he added. His father
died last month.
He never acknowledged relatives of his victim who looked through
an adjacent window.
As the drugs took effect, his eyes fluttered and he hiccupped
four times. A single tear ran down his right cheek, prompting quiet
sobs from his mother and an aunt and friends. The victim's
relatives gasped and motioned to each other.
Nine minutes later, at 6:17 p.m., he was pronounced dead, making
him the 14th prisoner executed this year in Texas, the nation's
most active death penalty state.
The U.S. Supreme Court, about 90 minutes before the lethal
injection, rejected a last-day appeal from Perry's lawyers. They
unsuccessfully argued they had new evidence showing Perry was
already in jail when 50-year-old Sandra Stotler was murdered in
2001. They also contended a co-defendant and friend of Perry's
killed Stotler.
Prosecutors said a "mountain of evidence" pointed to Perry --
most notably that he was seen driving Stotler's stolen car and
bragged about the killing before his arrest.
Perry was convicted of shooting Stotler twice in the back at her
home and stealing her red Chevrolet Camaro convertible. Testimony
showed Perry and a friend, Jason Burkett, then dumped her body in a
lake and returned to her Lake Conroe subdivision to wait for her
son, Adam. Prosecutors said Perry and Burkett lured Adam Stotler,
16, and his friend, Jeremy Richardson, 18, to a nearby wooded area,
shot them dead and stole Adam Stotler's SUV.
Two days later, Perry crashed the Camaro after a police chase.
He was arrested and released on bond under Adam Stotler's name
because he had Stotler's wallet and ID.
Sandra Stotler's body was found the next day. Police then
arrested Perry and Burkett in Stotler's SUV after a shootout.
Inside the truck, officers found the 12-gauge shotgun used to kill
Sandra Stotler.
"I know it's the needle and I want to save everybody the
trouble and just confess," he told police after his arrest,
according to court records. At his trial, Perry testified his
confession was forced and maintained his innocence.
Perry never was charged with the two other slayings. Burkett is
serving a life sentence for his role. A Montgomery County jury
deliberated two hours to convict Perry; jurors took another six
hours to send him to death row.
"There are so many mornings you can wake up and realize, 'I'm
not supposed to be here,"' he told The Associated Press from a
death row visiting cage.
Perry said he wasn't frightened of dying but acknowledged
frustration with the outcome.
"I try not to focus on it." he said. "I focus on my case, the
Bible, my family.
"Any good Christian can't be scared to go to paradise."
The medical examiner in his case, Paul Shrode, was fired from
his job earlier this year as El Paso County's chief medical
examiner after questions arose about his credibility and
competence. A second examiner reviewed Shrode's autopsies and
concluded the slayings could not have happened on Oct. 24, 2001,
but days later when Perry was in custody on the traffic charge.
Prosecutors said there was "no plausible reason" for Perry and
Burkett to be driving the vehicles of Stotler and her son if the
two were still alive.
Among evidence against Perry was his DNA on a cigarette butt
beneath one of the victims.
Perry also argued on appeal that a fellow jail inmate said
Burkett took credit for the slayings. State lawyers said other
courts had rejected the argument as self-serving for Perry and
"rank hearsay."
Perry was adopted as an infant and later diagnosed with
attention deficit disorder and conduct disorder and spent time in a
mental hospital. His parents sent him to Boys Town in Nebraska.
When he was expelled, they sent him to a secured high school campus
in Mexico. Perry said he turned to drugs and alcohol.
Steve Taylor, one of Perry's trial lawyers, said the trial was
difficult because of the crime itself and because there were no
other witnesses to back up Perry's claims.
"A very sad situation," Taylor said. "If the purpose was to
steal a vehicle, you can steal a vehicle anywhere you want to. You
don't have to cause the death of individuals to steal a car."
On Wednesday, Jonathan Green, 42, was spared from execution for
abducting, raping and strangling a 12-year-old Montgomery County
girl, Christina LeAnn Neal, a decade ago. The Texas Court of
Criminal Appeals said it needed more information about his claims
of mental incompetence.