Charles Thacker was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of Karen Crawford
According to court documents Charles Thacker, who was a convicted serial rapist, would attack Karen Crawford in her apartment complex, the woman would be sexually assaulted and strangled causing her death
Charles Thacker would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Charles Thacker would be executed by lethal injection on November 9 2005
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When Was Charles Thacker Executed
Charles Thacker was executed on November 9 2005
Charles Thacker Case
Apologizing for all he’d done in the past, Charles Daniel Thacker spoke in a voice choked with emotion with his spiritual advisors shortly before dying Wednesday night. “I am sorry for the things I have done,” he said. “I know God will forgive me. “I will miss you guys,” he told his spiritual advisors. “I love you.” As the lethal drugs began flowing, Thacker turned to his advisors and said, “I’ll get to see Mom. After saying, “I can already feel it a little bit,” Thacker let out several long breaths and died. Time of death was 6:32 p.m.
Before the lethal dose took effect, Thacker asked his witnesses to tell his attorney that “they couldn’t find a vein on my arm.” The issue of injection procedures was in his appeals that were rejected by the Supreme Court about 30 minutes before his execution. Thacker argued he was innocent of the death of Karen Gail Crawford, 26, who was attacked outside her apartment in Tomball in northwest Harris County. His execution was the 17th this year in Texas and the second of four scheduled for this month in the nation’s busiest death chamber.
At the time of the April 1993 offense, Thacker had been out of prison about eight months after serving less than four years of two 12-year sentences for robbery and sexual assault. After a Harris County jury convicted him of capital murder, the same jurors condemned him after hearing from at least a half dozen victims who testified how he raped or attempted to sexually assault them. Thacker’s relatives testified he had been molested as a child by his mother’s boyfriend and underwent counseling.
Appeals attorneys tried unsuccessfully to delay his punishment, contending new DNA testing should be performed on evidence and challenging the execution procedures and the questions asked of jurors who decided Thacker should die. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles this week refused to commute his sentence to life in prison and refused a request to delay the punishment for 120 days. Thacker, 37, a native of Lorain County, Ohio, declined to be interviewed in the weeks leading up to his execution, but on a Web site where death row inmates seek pen pals acknowledged he was in the area when Crawford was attacked “up to no good with two other guys looking for stuff to steal and sell.”
There was no evidence of others involved. Thacker’s truck was found in the apartment complex parking lot, and witnesses reported seeing him loitering in the area. On his Web site, Thacker suggested Crawford accidentally died because of CPR efforts. The second-grade teacher was surprised from behind while at a community mailbox at her apartment complex and was dragged into a restroom. A search began when a passer-by spotted a key dangling from Crawford’s open mailbox and her car was nearby with her dog inside. A maintenance worker found the women’s restroom nearby locked but was surprised to hear a male voice from inside. When the door opened, the worker was blasted with pepper spray from the fleeing man, whom he later identified as Thacker. Other residents who chased the man as he ran into a wooded area also said it was Thacker. Crawford was found unconscious inside the restroom. Police using tracking dogs found Thacker hiding in a yard. Authorities found a hair belonging to the victim in Thacker’s underwear, Thacker wanted the DNA testing to support his claim he was not involved in Crawford’s death. An autopsy showed Crawford had been choked or was held in a hammerlock, leading to her death two days later.
The women who testified he raped or tried to rape them ranged in age from 13 to 64. “I remember he was a particularly dangerous guy,” recalled Joe Owmby, a Harris County assistant district attorney who prosecuted Thacker. “You get the feeling that sometimes when you have violent robbers something went wrong in a capital murder. “But with him, you didn’t get the feeling something went wrong, that he just hadn’t gotten up the nerve to kill anyone yet. He was stalking these women and he was going to kill.”
http://itemonline.com/articles/2005/11/10/news/local/news5.txt