Absent media, Texas executes inmate who killed great aunt
A Texas man convicted of fatally beating his 83-year-old great aunt more than two decades ago was executed Wednesday evening without media witnesses present because prison agency officials neglected to notify reporters it was time to carry out the punishment.
Quintin Jones received the lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the September 1999 killing of Berthena Bryant, agency spokesman Jeremy Desel said about 30 minutes after Jones was pronounced dead.
Desel never received the usual phone call from the Huntsville Unit prison to bring reporters from The Associated Press and The Huntsville Item to the prison. He and the media witnesses were waiting in an office across the street.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice can only apologize for this error and nothing like this will ever happen again, he said.
He said the execution, the first in Texas in nearly a year, included a number of new personnel who have never participated in the process.
“Somewhere in that mix there was never a phone call made to this office for me to accompany the witnesses across the street into the Huntsville Unit,” Desel said.
Desel said he didnt immediately know if the glitch was a violation of state law or a violation of agency policy.
The previous 570 executions carried out by Texas since capital punishment resumed in 1982 all had at least one media witness.
My assumption is there will be a thorough investigation into how this all transpired and what was missed that allowed it to happen, and I expect that investigation is already underway, Desel said.
There were no unusual circumstances with the execution itself, he said, relying on accounts from agency officials who were inside the death chamber.
Jones made a brief statement thanking his supporters and expressing love for them.
I was so glad to leave this world a better, more positive place, he said, according to a prison transcript of his remarks. “Its not an easy life with all of the negativity.
I hope I left everyone a plate of food full of happy memories, happiness and no sadness. As the lethal dose of pentobarbital was administered, he took four or five deep breaths followed by “a long deep snore,” Desel said.
Jones was pronounced dead at 6:40 pm, 12 minutes after the drugs began.
Less than an hour before the scheduled punishment, the US Supreme Court declined to halt the 41-year-old mans execution.
Prosecutors said after Bryant refused to lend Jones money, he beat her with a bat in her Fort Worth home then took USD 30 from her purse to buy drugs. Some of Bryants family members, including her sister Mattie Long, had said they didnt want Jones to be executed. Jones was Longs grandnephew.
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