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Thread: Karl Eugene Chamberlain - Texas Execution - June 11, 2008

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    Karl Eugene Chamberlain - Texas Execution - June 11, 2008


    Felecia Prechtl, 29




    Summary of Offense: Convicted and sentenced to death in the August 2, 1981 rape-murder of Felecia Prechtl.

    Chamberlain was a resident of the same apartment complex and had gone to the victim's apartment under the pretense of borrowing sugar. Chamberlain left the apartment and returned minutes later with duct tape and a rifle. Chamberlain entered the apartment, displayed the weapon to the victim, and forced the victim into a bedroom. Chamberlain taped her hands and feet, and sexually assaulted her. Chamberlain took the victim into the bathroom and shot her one time in the head with a .30 caliber rifle, then left.

    Police questioned Chamberlain the night of the murder, but he was not arrested until five years later, after a fingerprint search returned his name as a possible match. Police arrested Chamberlain, who gave investigators a written confession. He also directed them to a weapon of the same type used to kill Prechtl, and provided DNA samples that matched the profile of samples taken from Prechtl’s body. A Dallas County jury deliberated just seven minutes before convicting Chamberlain of capital murder for killing Prechtl and took two-and-a-half hours to decide he should be put to death.

    Victim: Felecia Prechtl

    Time of Death: 6:30 pm

    Manner of Execution: Lethal Injection

    Final Meal: A variety of fresh fruit and vegetables, cheese, lunch meat, deviled eggs, six fried cheese-stuffed jalapenos, a chef salad with ranch dressing, onion rings, french fries, a cheeseburger, two fried chicken breasts, barbecue pork rolls, an omelet, milk and orange juice

    Final Words: Smiling broadly as he looked at Prechtl's relatives watching him through a window, he told them he loved them, repeatedly said he was sorry and thanked them for coming to watch him die. "We are here to honor the life of Felecia Prechtl, a woman I didn't even know, and to celebrate my death," he said in the seconds before he was injected with lethal drugs. "I wish I could die more than once to tell you how sorry I am."

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    June 11, 2008

    "Dallas Woman's Killer Put to Death"

    HUNTSVILLE, Texas — Idle for almost nine months because of a court challenge to lethal injections, the nation's busiest death chamber is again carrying out executions. Convicted killer Karl Eugene Chamberlain received lethal injection Wednesday evening after late appeals to the state and federal courts failed to block his execution for raping and fatally shooting Felecia Prechtl, a 30-year-old single mother, at her Dallas apartment almost 17 years ago.

    Smiling broadly as he looked at Prechtl's relatives watching him through a window, he told them he loved them, repeatedly said he was sorry and thanked them for coming to watch him die. "We are here to honor the life of Felecia Prechtl, a woman I didn't even know, and to celebrate my death," he said in the seconds before he was injected with lethal drugs. "I wish I could die more than once to tell you how sorry I am."

    As the drugs took effect, he urged them to "not hate anybody because...." He slipped into unconsciousness before completing the thought. He was pronounced dead nine minutes later.

    "It has been 11 years since his conviction," said Ina Prechtl, whose daughter was murdered. "He has been housed, clothed, given blankets, pillows. at some point TV, mail, sunlight, clean clothes, food and drink, appeal lawyers all paid by our tax dollars... "The victim, Felecia, our daughter and mother, has been in a sealed concrete vault and casket 6 feet under dirt for the past 17 years, since the crime was committed. Paid for by her family."

    Attorneys for Chamberlain unsuccessfully appealed in state and federal courts, trying to block the punishment. The Supreme Court, which rejected in April the constitutional claims brought last year from two Kentucky inmates who said lethal injection was too cruel, rejected Chamberlain's request for a reprieve and review of his case.

    Then in a filing just hours before his scheduled execution time, lawyers for the Texas Defenders Service, a legal group that opposes capital punishment, went to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, questioning the state Department of Criminal Justice's implementation of lethal injection.

    When that appeal also failed, Chamberlain became the sixth prisoner executed nationally this year, all in recent weeks. At least another 12 inmates have execution dates in the coming months in Texas, where 26 prisoners were executed last year, more than any other state.

    On Monday, the Court of Criminal Appeals, ruling in a different appeal, refused to stop Chamberlain's punishment. At the same time, the court lifted a reprieve it gave a week ago to Derrick Sonnier just 90 minutes before he was to be executed for killing a suburban Houston woman and her young son. Sonnier, like Chamberlain, had argued the Texas lethal injection procedures were unconstitutionally cruel.

    A Dallas County jury deliberated just seven minutes before convicting Chamberlain of capital murder for killing Prechtl and took 2 1/2 hours to decide he should be put to death. It took 11 years to carry out the sentence.

    "One question I ask myself every day," Ina Prechtl said. "Why does it take so long for justice to be served?"

    Chamberlain, who would have turned 38 next week, lived upstairs in the same apartment complex as his victim. He denied any knowledge of the crime when questioned by police the day of the 1991 slaying. He was arrested five years later after his fingerprint was matched to a print on a roll of duct tape used to bind Prechtl. Chamberlain's prints had been entered into a database after he went on probation for an attempted robbery and abduction in Houston. When he was arrested in Euless in suburban Dallas, he confessed.

    Prechtl's brother and his girlfriend had taken her 5-year-old son to a store for some food and a video while she got ready to go out with friends. While they were gone, Chamberlain knocked on Prechtl's door and asked to borrow some sugar. After she filled the request, he returned with a rifle and the roll of duct tape, attacked the single mother and shot her in the head. Her son found her body.

    After his arrest, Chamberlain told police they could find the murder weapon, a .30-caliber M-1 rifle, at his father's house. DNA evidence, plus the fingerprint evidence and confession, tied him to the crime scene.

    "Evidence of his guilt was overwhelming," said Toby Shook, one of the prosecutors at his trial. "We were able to develop a good history of what we believed to be a sexual predator and a continuing danger."

    Another execution is set for next week. Charles Hood faces injection Tuesday for the 1989 slayings of Ronald Williamson and Tracie Lynn Wallace at Williamson's suburban Dallas home.

    (Source: Houston Chronicle)

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    Student to exhibit murderer’s ashes

    A Danish law student is to exhibit the ashes of an executed American murderer in an attempt to create a debate about the death penalty.

    Martin Martensen-Larsen of the University of Copenhagen will display the remains of Karl Eugene Chamberlain, 38, who was given the lethal injection in 2008 for the rape and murder of his 29 year-old neighbour.

    The ashes will be encased in an hourglass, a set-up designed to question the length of time it takes to forgive.

    “You often hear relatives of victims say after an execution that the person executed will end in hell, or that he is a monster or beast. But the death penalty is designed to be closure for the relatives and the rest of society. When does forgiveness come?” Martensen-Larsen asked in a report by Politiken.

    The student made headlines in Denmark before, when he sold tickets to the execution of American Travis Runnels in an attempt to draw attention to the issue. “I take my projects very seriously. I ask questions that I feel are essential,” he said. “The fact that I have to use some methods that may seem provocative is unavoidable. But that is not my goal,” he added.

    Martensen-Larsen said he is hoping to invoke strong reactions from his exhibition but does not view it as indecent. “I don’t think it is any more absurd or objectionable than what happens on the gurney. I ask some questions about things that people don’t think about.

    “There are some 50 executions each year in the United States. So if people think that this is an objectionable project, they should really be angry all year round because of the many executions,” he told Politiken.

    Even though the installation will only be shown in Denmark, where there is no death penalty, Martensen-Larsen claims the issue is still relevant to locals.

    “When for example Anders Breivik appears, there is suddenly a debate about whether the death penalty should be reintroduced. There was also a debate about it when Peter Lundin [who killed four people] was sentenced. I want to show the Danes that when you are tempted to reintroduce it, there are some questions that haven’t been thought through,” he said. “As a law student, I find it interesting to see how the extreme consequences of punishment and guilt have been transferred to the elimination of a person,” he added.

    It has not yet been decided where the exhibition will be shown, but Chamberlain’s family have given their permission for the ashes to be used.

    http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2012...#ixzz1nImzbneg

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