Jedidiah Murphy, a 48-year-old American, was executed despite his attempts to modify or postpone his sentence. The US state of Texas on Tuesday executed by lethal injection this man sentenced to death for the murder of an elderly woman 20 years ago, bringing the number of executions in the United States to 20 this year.
His death took place in a prison in Huntsville (South) on Tuesday, coinciding with the World Day Against the Death Penalty. He was pronounced dead at 10:15 p.m. (3:15 a.m. GMT), according to the Texas Department of Justice.
“To the victim’s family, I want to say that I sincerely apologize for everything I did. I hope this will comfort you, thank you,” he said as his last words, before reading a psalm. Murphy was Jewish.
Signs of serious mental illness
On October 4, 2000, in Garland, northeast of Dallas, Murphy threatened a 79-year-old woman with a gun so that she would take him in her car. After driving for approximately 30 minutes, Murphy forced the woman into the trunk of the vehicle. The victim was shot while climbing into the trunk.
Murphy then drove the victim’s car to Van Zandt County, where he removed it from the trunk and threw it into a creek, according to the Texas Department of Justice.
According to the pleadings of his lawyers, reported in the local press in recent weeks, Murphy had been abused as a child in a foster family and showed signs of serious mental illness, including hallucinations. Although he did not deny the crime, he claimed he did not intend to shoot and tried unsuccessfully to get his sentence reduced.
Murphy’s lawyers recently got an appeals court to stay the execution, citing questions about the evidence used in his death sentence. He denied having participated in two robberies and a kidnapping for which he had also been charged and which had aggravated his case.
However, the Supreme Court lifted this stay on Tuesday, at the request of the Texas Attorney General’s Office.
2023-10-11 06:03:00
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