Throughout the centuries there have been many people who were condemned to die for the most
brutal of crimes.
Many murderers such as Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy were executed for the evil sprees
in which dozens were killed.
Women were also killed with Aileen Wuornos and many others being condemned in recent
decades, however one woman who became the first woman in over a century to be executed
in Texas was Karla Faye Tucker who committed a couple of murders using a pickaxe as her
weapon during a burglary.
Her crimes were particularly brutal, and for this she was taken into an execution chamber
in Huntsville in Texas after being on death row for 14 years.
But what is the story of her execution?
Join us today as we find out, and to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
Born on the 18th November 1959 in Houston Texas, Karla Tucker had a very difficult childhood.
Her parents’ marriage was failing and she was led down a bad path, and she began smoking
at the age of 8.
She also learned that she was the result of an affair also, but by the age of 12 she had
also started to take drugs, and her mother also forced her into a horrific line of work
at just the age of 14.
She began to travel around with her mother as a rock groupie following bands such as
the Eagles, but at the age of 16 she married a handyman.
However when she was 20 her mother died on Christmas Eve 1979.
This was in particular traumatic for her as her mother died from the effects of drug abuse,
but this ended the only relationship Karla had with someone who she believed loved her.
But she then started hanging out with bikers, and she met a woman named Shawn Dean and her
husband Jerry Lynn Dean.
The couple then intdocued her to a man named Daniel Ryan Garrett and she then began dating
this man despite a 14 year age gap.
The couple would spent time abusing drugs and drinking, but following a weekend doing
this, Tucker and Garrett entered the apartment of Jerry Dean at 3am on Monday 13th June 1983.
They entered his home to steal his motorbike, but Karla allegedly disliked Dean after he
once parked his motorbike in her living room and let oil drip on the carpet, and he also
destroyed the only pictures she had of her and her mother.
When they entered the apartment, they found that Jerry Dean was asleep.
Garret then struck him with a hammer a number of times on the head, and after hitting him
he left the apartment to carry the motorcycle.
Karla remained in the bedroom, and the blows Garett had dealt dean caused him to make a
strange noise.
Karla wanted to allegedly ‘stop him making the noise,’ and she picked up a 3 foot pickaxe
which was lying against the wall, and she then began to hit Dean.
Garrett came back in the room and then gave Dean a final whack to the chest.
Tucker then realised that there was a woman who was hiding under the bed covers against
the wall.
This was Deborah Thornton, who Jerry Dean had picked up at a party.
The two women then began to fight as Karla picked up the pickaxe, but then Garrett came
back in and separated them.
Karla Tucker then hit Deborah with the pickaxe again, and it embedded in her heart.
The victims were found the next morning, and it took 5 weeks for Karla Tucker and Daniel
Garrett to be arrested.
Karla Faye went to trial in April 1984, and she was judged by a jury of 8 women and 4
men and a female judge.
The defence called no witnesses and the jury took just 70 minutes before convicting Karla
of murder.
The trial then came to the penalty phase and the defence claimed that a woman psychiatrist
testified that Karla had been a drug addict, and that this meant she was not of sound mind
when she committed the crime.
She had allegedly not slept for 3 nights too and had taken drugs and drank the night of
the killings.
Karla later said on the stand, ‘I did not see the bodies, I do not remember seeing any
holes of blood.’
But after three hours of deliberation she was sentenced to death, and was to face the
lethal injection.
She was referred to as the Pickaxe Murderess.
Karla then spent the next 14 years almost on female death row in the Mountain View unit
at Gatesville prison.
She went through a number of appeals, and a final appeal to the state governor George
W Bush for clemency, but this was all rejected.
On the 2nd February 1998, she was flown 175 mines to Huntsville and was taken to the Walls
unit and was held in a holding cell to await her execution which would take place in the
execution chamber next door.
IT must have been ominous staying next door to where she would be killed.
On her final day she refused to eat breakfast in her cell, and her guards said she was peaceful
and had come to terms with her death sentence.
She had two visitors and she wrote one letter, and was allowed hall an hour with her husband
who was Prison Minister Dana Brown, who she married whilst they were on death row.
There were two last minute calls for clemency, an the Texas governor George Bush ordered
the execution to go ahead as scheduled on time.
He said, ‘I have concluded judgements about the heart and soul of an individual on Death
Row are best left to a higher authority.’
Around 6:20pm, Karla was dressed in fresh white prison clothes and she was prepared
for execution.
She climbed onto the gurney on her own and was strapped down by her arms and legs, and
then her body was secured.
Her arms were placed into the sideboards, and then the lethal injection was prepared.
She was then wheeled into the execution chamber, and she was asked if she had any final words.
She said, ‘Yes sir, I would like to say to all of you, the Thornton Family and Jerry
Dean’s family that I am so sorry.
I hope god will give you peace with this.’
She looked at her husband and said she loved him, and also said ‘I’m going to be face
to face with Jesus now.’
She thanked the wardens and said she would wait for them in death.
After this she then closed her eyes and moved her lips in prayer.
The three drugs were then injected at 6:37pm, and two minutes later she took two deep sighs
and then a groan, but 8 minutes later she was pronounced death, and was staring at the
ceiling with her eyes open.
One of the witnesses, the husband of the Deborah Thornton would said, ‘"I want to say to
every victim in the world, demand this execution.
This day belongs to Deborah Ruth Thornton.
Her killer has been sent to a place we’re all going to go to sometime, some place my
wife already is.
She will deal with Karla Faye Tucker.
I promise you, it won’t be pretty."
She was the first women executed in the state of Texas in 135 years, and was the second
woman executed in American since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976.
Karla Faye Tucker’s life was very difficult, however she was involved in brutal and shocking
murders in which two people were slaughtered in a bedroom.
She used a pickaxe for her crimes, and the murders were rather bloody and shocking.
She needlessly killed a woman who she could have spared, but she probably did this to
make sure that she wasn’t immediately captured and arrested for the first muder.
But she was remembered as a woman who could have been given a sense of clemency, and after
the execution of Karla the captain of the execution team Fred Allen quit his job, as
he said ‘"I was pro capital punishment.
After Karla Faye and after all this, until this day, eleven years later, no sir.
Nobody has the right to take another life.
I don't care if it's the law.
And it's so easy to change the law.’
Her execution was one which was considered controversial
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