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Thread: Anthony Charles Williams - Texas Execution - May 28, 1987

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    Anthony Charles Williams - Texas Execution - May 28, 1987






    Summary of Offense: Convicted of the June 12, 1978 murder of Vickie Lynn Wright, 13, who was abducted from the parking lot of a Houston bowling alley. Wright was strangled and beaten on the head with a two-by-four board, then raped.

    Victim: Vickie Lynn Wright

    Time of Death: 12:22 a.m.

    Manner of execution: Lethal Injection

    Last Meal: Fish tartar sauce, french fries, catsup, white bread and milk

    Final Statement: "Mother, I'm sorry for causing you all this pain. Please forgive me. Take care of yourself." Then, addressing his brothers, Ernest and Otis, he added, "Watch over mother. All of those who helped me, I thank you all."

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    May 28, 1987

    Subdued Williams executed for rape-murder of teen-ager

    HUNTSVILLE - Anthony Williams - a man his attorneys claimed was violent because of brain damage suffered in a childhood accident - was executed early today for the 1978 rape-slaying of a Houston school girl. Though the 27-year-old killer's courtroom appearances were occasionally marked by outbursts - he once told a state witness he should have killed her - Williams Wednesday was subdued as he awaited death. He was moved to the state death house in the Walls Unit in downtown Huntsville early Wednesday. About 7 p.m., he was advised that the U.S. Supreme Court had rejected his last-minute appeal - in essence, assuring that he would become the 23rd man to be executed in Texas since the state revived the death penalty 11 years ago. As harmless saline solution flowed into his veins, Williams addressed relatives who were not present as witnesses, saying: "Mother, I'm sorry for causing you all this pain. Please forgive me. Take care of yourself." Then, addressing his brothers, Ernest and Otis, he added, "Watch over Mother. All of those who helped me, I thank you all." Then the combination of lethal drugs was injected into the intravenous tubes inserted in his arms. Williams was declared dead at 12:22 a.m. today. Williams had been convicted of the June 12, 1978, murder of Vickie Lynn Wright, 13, who was abducted from the parking lot of a Houston bowling alley. Wright was strangled and beaten on the head with a 2-by-4 board, then raped. In their ill-fated appeal to the nation's highest court, attorneys for Williams contended the 11th-grade dropout did not get a full medical examination or proper legal representation during his trial. Upon being told that the high court had rejected the appeal, Williams slumped to his death house bunk, listlessly lit a cigarette and stared at the bars of his cell.

    Earlier in the day, Williams played dominoes with TDC guards and visited members of his family. He hardly touched a final meal of fish, tartar sauce, french fries, bread and milk, prison spokesmen said. In the stay requests, attorney Jim Rebholz of the American Civil Liberties Union, claimed that Williams' organic brain damage was misdiagnosed by a psychiatrist hired by defense attorneys during the trial. Rebholz contended the injury was never fully presented to the jury. When Williams was 6 years old, he was struck by a car while he was riding his bicycle. He spent two weeks in the hospital for head injuries. "When Anthony was released from the hospital, he didn't look the same, and he never acted the same," Rebholz said. A state psychiatrist testified that Williams is competent and is not suffering from any serious problems from the childhood injury. State attorneys contended the 1978 slaying capped a string of rapes Williams committed just prior to the attack on Wright. Four women testified at Williams' trial that he had attacked them. During the testimony of one, whom Williams had shot between the eyes and left for dead, Williams told his attorney that she should have died. Then, with jurors listening, he said even louder to her: "I should have killed you, you black bitch." In arguing for his execution, state attorneys said, "His activities in the two months preceding the capital murder demonstrated a pattern of escalating violence against women. The culmination of this serial rapist's summer was the brutal slaying of Vickie Lynn Wright." Williams maintained his innocence and denied he killed the girl. But he told arresting officers he did abduct her and take her to a field. "She told me she was scared," he said. "I got her out of the car and hit her two or three times. I then picked up a board and hit the girl in the head, and she fell back to some bushes." Williams consistently refused requests for press interviews. Williams, one of five children of a Houston couple, was sent to a Texas youth reformatory in 1976 on a theft charge. The killing of Wright occurred about eight months after Williams was released from the home.

    During the eight months Williams was free, he worked as a carpenter's helper with his father and was drinking about a case of beer a day, said court documents. He has a tested IQ of about 84.

    Williams was the first Texas inmate executed after the U.S. Supreme Court last month removed a major legal roadblock to use of the death penalty.

    http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/ar...id=1987_465479

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