Kevin Zimmerman was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of Leslie Hooks
According to court documents Kevin Zimmerman and his accomplices would rob Leslie Hooks at a motel before stabbing him to death
Kevin Zimmerman was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Kevin Zimmerman would be executed on January 21 2004 by lethal injection
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When Was Kevin Zimmerman Executed
Kevin Zimmerman was executed on January 21 2004
Kevin Zimmerman Case
A contrite Kevin Lee Zimmerman was executed Wednesday for the 1987 robbery and murder of a Louisiana oilfield worker at a Beaumont motel. The execution occurred six weeks after he had made a similar trip to the death house only to have his life spared within about 20 minutes of the scheduled execution.
After expressing love to relatives and friends, he looked at five members of victim Leslie Gilbert Hooks Jr.’s family and asked for their forgiveness. “In the name of Jesus, I’m so sorry for the pain I’ve caused y’all,” he said, his voice choking as he tried to hold back sobs. “I’m sorry. Gilbert didn’t deserve to die and I want you to know I’m sorry,” he said. “I pray the good Lord will give y’all peace.” After telling a warden he was ready, Zimmerman began praying and was stopped in mid-sentence by a gasp as the lethal drugs began taking effect. Ten minutes later, at 6:19 p.m., he was pronounced dead.
In a prepared statement, Zimmerman said his December ordeal “was a spiritual and emotional drain” and asked that “those who have the power to act” pass a law that bars setting execution dates until all appeals have been exhausted. “It is not fair for an inmate’s life to be toyed with by the justice system,” he said. “It is not fair nor is it responsible for the states to allow victim’s families to be put through the same cruel stress again and again.” He described himself as a born-again Christian who confessed his sins and repented.
Zimmerman, 42, from Lafayette Parish, La., was the third condemned inmate to die this year in Texas. Another lethal injection is set for next week, one of at least nine scheduled for the first quarter of the year in the nation’s most active death penalty state. Zimmerman had expressed disappointment after a U.S. Supreme Court order Dec. 10 halted his punishment for the robbery and murder of the 33-year-old Louisiana oilfield worker who was stabbed 31 times. “I was ready to go,” he said then, complaining the reprieve meant “18 more months of this crap.”
Arriving Wednesday at the death house, his attitude remained much the same. “After 16 years, another stay is just more time,” he said, saying he was not seeking a reprieve but wouldn’t order attorneys to halt appeals because he was leaving it to “the will of God.”
Zimmerman’s execution was stopped after lawyers filed suit contending the combination of drugs used in lethal injections contributes to unconstitutional pain and suffering. The Supreme Court, however, five days later rejected an appeal in his case, clearing the way for state District Judge Charles Carver to quickly set a new death date. The same issue was included in another appeal in his case and the high court again ruled 5-4, rejecting the arguments in a ruling delivered about an hour before Zimmerman was scheduled to die. The arguments regarding pain and suffering, raised similarly in an Alabama case to be reviewed by the Supreme Court, outraged the relatives of Hooks, who was slain after meeting Zimmerman and two other people, George Weber and Kay Gonzales, at the Beaumont Motel 6.
“In the words of my sister, her late husband was ‘slaughtered like a hog’ by this ruthless, cold-hearted murderer, so why should Kevin Zimmerman be denied feeling just a tiny fraction of the pain that Gilbert suffered?” Steven Shaver, whose sister was married to Hooks, said in a statement on behalf of the family before the execution. Zimmerman attracted attention when he went to a hospital for treatment of knife wounds and was arrested after authorities were called to the motel where a maid discovered Hooks’ body.
In a letter to a district attorney, Zimmerman said he killed Hooks for the oilfield worker’s money. Gonzales testified she saw Zimmerman and Weber stabbing Hooks as he pleaded for his life. Weber received 91 years in prison. Zimmerman got the death penalty. In another letter, this one to the judge at his trial, Zimmerman in detail threatened to kill the judge and included a drawing of himself holding an ax. “But the most shocking thing of all was that he drew the picture using his own blood as the ink,” state District Judge Larry Gist recalled.
The letter was used against Zimmerman as evidence in the punishment phase of his trial in Jefferson County, where a jury took only 15 minutes to decide he should be condemned. In 1992, Zimmerman and two other condemned inmates tried to escape from death row by sawing their way through a recreation yard fence. The escape attempt was halted when a guard opened fire on them.