Karl Chamberlain was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of Felecia Prechtl
According to court documents Karl Chamberlain would go over to his neighbors apartment where he would sexually assault and murder Felecia Prechtl
Karl Chamberlain would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Karl Chamberlain would be executed by lethal injection on June 11 2008
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When Was Karl Chamberlain Executed
Karl Chamberlain was executed on June 11 2008
Karl Chamberlain Case
Idle for almost nine months because of a court challenge to lethal injections, the nation’s busiest death chamber is again carrying out executions. Convicted killer Karl Eugene Chamberlain received lethal injection Wednesday evening after late appeals to the state and federal courts failed to block his execution for raping and fatally shooting Felecia Prechtl, a 30-year-old single mother, at her Dallas apartment almost 17 years ago.
Smiling broadly as he looked at Prechtl’s relatives watching him through a window, he told them he loved them, repeatedly said he was sorry and thanked them for coming to watch him die. “We are here to honor the life of Felecia Prechtl, a woman I didn’t even know, and to celebrate my death,” he said in the seconds before he was injected with lethal drugs. “I wish I could die more than once to tell you how sorry I am.”
As the drugs took effect, he urged them to “not hate anybody because….” He slipped into unconsciousness before completing the thought. He was pronounced dead nine minutes later.
“It has been 11 years since his conviction,” said Ina Prechtl, whose daughter was murdered. “He has been housed, clothed, given blankets, pillows. at some point TV, mail, sunlight, clean clothes, food and drink, appeal lawyers all paid by our tax dollars… “The victim, Felecia, our daughter and mother, has been in a sealed concrete vault and casket 6 feet under dirt for the past 17 years, since the crime was committed. Paid for by her family.”
Attorneys for Chamberlain unsuccessfully appealed in state and federal courts, trying to block the punishment. The Supreme Court, which rejected in April the constitutional claims brought last year from two Kentucky inmates who said lethal injection was too cruel, rejected Chamberlain’s request for a reprieve and review of his case.
Then in a filing just hours before his scheduled execution time, lawyers for the Texas Defenders Service, a legal group that opposes capital punishment, went to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, questioning the state Department of Criminal Justice’s implementation of lethal injection.
When that appeal also failed, Chamberlain became the sixth prisoner executed nationally this year, all in recent weeks. At least another 12 inmates have execution dates in the coming months in Texas, where 26 prisoners were executed last year, more than any other state.
On Monday, the Court of Criminal Appeals, ruling in a different appeal, refused to stop Chamberlain’s punishment. At the same time, the court lifted a reprieve it gave a week ago to Derrick Sonnier just 90 minutes before he was to be executed for killing a suburban Houston woman and her young son. Sonnier, like Chamberlain, had argued the Texas lethal injection procedures were unconstitutionally cruel.
A Dallas County jury deliberated just seven minutes before convicting Chamberlain of capital murder for killing Prechtl and took 2 1/2 hours to decide he should be put to death. It took 11 years to carry out the sentence.
“One question I ask myself every day,” Ina Prechtl said. “Why does it take so long for justice to be served?”
Chamberlain, who would have turned 38 next week, lived upstairs in the same apartment complex as his victim. He denied any knowledge of the crime when questioned by police the day of the 1991 slaying. He was arrested five years later after his fingerprint was matched to a print on a roll of duct tape used to bind Prechtl. Chamberlain’s prints had been entered into a database after he went on probation for an attempted robbery and abduction in Houston. When he was arrested in Euless in suburban Dallas, he confessed.
Prechtl’s brother and his girlfriend had taken her 5-year-old son to a store for some food and a video while she got ready to go out with friends. While they were gone, Chamberlain knocked on Prechtl’s door and asked to borrow some sugar. After she filled the request, he returned with a rifle and the roll of duct tape, attacked the single mother and shot her in the head. Her son found her body.
After his arrest, Chamberlain told police they could find the murder weapon, a .30-caliber M-1 rifle, at his father’s house. DNA evidence, plus the fingerprint evidence and confession, tied him to the crime scene.
“Evidence of his guilt was overwhelming,” said Toby Shook, one of the prosecutors at his trial. “We were able to develop a good history of what we believed to be a sexual predator and a continuing danger.”
Another execution is set for next week. Charles Hood faces injection Tuesday for the 1989 slayings of Ronald Williamson and Tracie Lynn Wallace at Williamson’s suburban Dallas home.
