A man has been put to death for the 2005 fatal shooting of three people during an attempted robbery at his neighbour’s home in rural Texas, the state’s fifth execution this year.
LeJames Norman, 40, was put to death by lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He’d been sentenced to death in the fatal shootings of Samuel Roberts, 24, Tiffani Peacock, 18, and Celso Lopez, 38, inside the home they shared in Edna, located about 161 kilometres southwest of Houston.
Ker’Sean Ramey was also convicted in the shootings and sentenced to death. His execution is set for next week.
Court records indicated Norman and Ramey believed there was cocaine in the house and hoped to steal it, but they never found any drugs. Norman was arrested about five months after the killings while trying to cross back into the US from Mexico.
Norman pleaded guilty to capital murder, leaving a jury to decide his punishment. The US Supreme Court denied a request on Wednesday from Norman’s attorneys to stop his execution.
Prior to his execution, Norman was asked by the warden if he wanted to make a final statement, Norman shook his head.
He was lying on a thin mattress atop a steel table, his head on a white pillow. He nodded toward a window through which a sister, two of his children and a friend watched and made eye contact as one of them danced.
As the lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital began taking effect, he took a couple of deep breaths, appeared to yawn and made snoring sounds — six of them. All movement then stopped.
Thirty minutes later, after a physician examined him, he was pronounced dead at 6.44pm and covered with a white sheet. Only his right hand and lower forearm, covered with an elastic bandage, were visible.
No relatives or friends of the three murder victims in his case witnessed Norman’s punishment.
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