Peter Miniel was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of Paul Manier
According to court documents Peter Miniel and an accomplice went to the home of Paul Manier. They would distract Manier and Miniel would strike him in the back of the head with a heavy glass before stabbing the man repeatedly causing his death
Peter Miniel would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Peter Miniel would be executed by lethal injection on October 6 2004
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When Was Peter Miniel Executed
Peter Miniel was executed on October 6 2004
Peter Miniel Case
Convicted killer Peter Miniel says he’s been looking forward to Wednesday for some time. It’s the day he’s to be put to death. “I’m ready for them to get me,” Miniel said recently from a closet-like enclosure in the visiting area outside Texas’ death row. “I’m ready to pay the price.” Miniel, 42, would be the 15th Texas prisoner executed this year and the second in as many days.
On Tuesday evening, Edward Green III, 30, was executed for fatally shooting Edward Haden, 72, and Helen O’Sullivan, 63, during a robbery as the couple stopped their car at a Houston intersection in 1992. Green’s punishment was delayed by two hours, capping a day of appeals as lawyers argued the punishment should be put off because of a series of problems at the Houston police crime lab. Green’s attorneys, two state senators from Harris County and the Houston police chief wanted executions stopped for all county cases until authorities can review some 280 recently discovered boxes of evidence that had been mislabeled and improperly stored.
Although prosecutors insisted all evidence in his case had been accounted for, evidence relevant to Green’s case could be among the files in the boxes, Green’s lawyers contended. “The integrity of the state’s criminal justice system is better served by the exercise of caution, which will result only in several months delay than the state’s shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later approach,” defense lawyer David Dow said in an appeal that eventually was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Some 30 minutes later, Green was pronounced dead after apologizing to his family and relatives of his victims “for all the pain I’ve caused you.”
No similar appeals effort was anticipated Wednesday in the case of Miniel, condemned for the slaying 18 years ago of a Houston man, Paul Manier. Manier, 20, was fatally beaten with a car shock absorber and a beer mug and stabbed repeatedly with a knife. Miniel asked that his attorneys file no additional appeals to delay the lethal injection.
In an interview last month, he disclosed to The Associated Press his claims of innocence from his arrest through his trial and beyond were bogus. “I lied,” he said. “I want to tell the truth. I am guilty. I was wrong. I want to pay the price I was supposed to,” he said.
A Houston jury in 1988 took only five minutes to decide the guilt of Miniel, who grew up in Rock Falls, Ill., and who came to Houston in the mid 1980s for a job that didn’t materialize. In Illinois, he had convictions for theft, disorderly conduct and unlawful use of weapons. At the time of the Texas slaying, he was on 60 months’ probation for aggravated battery and Illinois authorities had filed a petition to revoke the probation for a second similar charge involving the beating of his girlfriend with a wooden spoon and motorcycle chain.
According to court documents, Miniel and a companion, James Warren Russell Jr., went to Manier’s house May 9, 1986, to get some marijuana, then offered him some cocaine. As Manier leaned over a small mirror he was preparing to use to snort the drug, Miniel repeatedly hit Manier in the head with a glass beer mug. Then Meniel and Russell grabbed a shock absorber that was nearby and continued to beat the victim.
When Manier remained conscious, court records show Miniel stabbed him nearly 40 times with a small knife, tried slitting his neck and tried to asphyxiate him by jamming a blanket down this throat. They took a stereo and his wallet containing $20, then went to eat at a Burger King.
Miniel was arrested about two weeks later in Chicago, where he sold some of the stereo to a neighbor. Russell was arrested in Brookshire, west of Houston, took a plea deal for a 50-year prison term and testified against his partner. “We got into a fight. The fight turned into a killing,” Miniel said. “One thing led to another. We shouldn’t have done that. It was wrong. We were very high and drunk. That was my main problem.”
Anthony Manier, who was 12 when his older brother was killed, said he planned to attend the execution with his parents. “It’s just going to let me know he’s getting what they gave him,” Manier said. “What he deserves is nothing what he’s getting. He’s getting the easy way out… He’s going to sleep and that’s it. I hope he realizes that he got off so lucky.”
Manier said his parents were hoping Miniel said nothing to them from the death chamber gurney. “The way my mom and dad feel, he can admit his guilt to his maker,” Manier said. Three more executions are scheduled this month in Texas, including one next week.
http://www.dentonrc.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D85HR9T01.html
