A Texas death row inmate declined to make a final statement Wednesday night before he was executed for the killings of three people in a failed 2005 robbery attempt.
LeJames Norman was 40.
Asked by the warden whether he wished to offer final words, Norman shook his head. He was then executed by lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.
This photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows LeJames Norman on Feb. 28, 2024. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP)
Norman received a death sentence for the fatal shootings of Samuel Roberts, 24, Tiffani Peacock, 18, and Celso Lopez, 38, at the Edna residence they shared, roughly 100 miles southwest of Houston.
Court documents said Norman and Ker’Sean Ramey went to the home believing cocaine was stored there and planned to steal it. No drugs were found.
Ramey was also convicted and sentenced to death in the triple killing. His execution is set for next week.
About five months after the murders, authorities arrested Norman as he attempted to re-enter the United States from Mexico.
He later pleaded guilty to capital murder, with jurors left to determine whether he should receive the death penalty. On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his attorneys’ request to halt the execution.
During his final moments, Norman lay on a thin mattress placed on a steel execution table, looking toward a window as his sister, two children and a friend watched.
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A table fitted with restraints holds down death row prisoners while they are given a lethal injection at Huntsville Unit (Walls Unit) in Huntsville, Texas. (Greg Smith/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
After receiving a lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital, Norman took a couple of deep breaths, appeared to yawn and made several snoring sounds. He then stopped moving.
A physician examined him about 30 minutes later, and Norman was pronounced dead at 6:44 p.m.
No relatives or friends of the three people he killed witnessed the execution.
Norman was the fifth inmate executed in Texas this year.
Stacey Humphreys. (Georgia Department of Corrections)
Another execution scheduled for Wednesday was halted in Georgia, where Stacey Humphreys, a man convicted of killing two real estate agents, had been set to die. A judge stopped the execution in a late-night decision Tuesday after Humphreys’ lawyers requested a delay over a new state law that gives victims of childhood abuse the opportunity to have their sentences reduced.