Charles Milton was executed by the State of Texas for a murder that took place during a robbery
According to court documents Charles Milton would rob a liquor store and in the process would shoot and kill the store clerk
Charles Milton would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Charles Milton would be executed by lethal injection on May 25 1985
Charles Milton Photos
Charles Milton FAQ
When was Charles Milton executed
Charles Milton was executed on May 25 1985
How was Charles Milton executed
Charles Milton was executed by lethal injection
Charles Milton Case
Charles Milton, convicted of murdering a liquor store owner during a robbery, was executed by injection today after last-minute appeals to Gov. Mark White and the U.S. Supreme Court failed.
Milton, 34, of Fort Worth, who converted to Islam while in prison, used his final statement while strapped to a Texas Department of Corrections gurney to pray to Allah and to urge his ″brothers and sisters to be strong.″
He was sentenced to death for the slaying eight years and one day ago of Fort Worth liquor store owner Menaree Denton, who was shot in the heart while she and her husband, Leonard, struggled with Milton during an aborted robbery
Defense attorneys contended the shooting was an accident.
The legal scramble through the state and federal courts climaxed at 1 a.m. with word that the Supreme Court had refused to act. White, as has been his custom, then rejected the petition for a reprieve.
Milton, with needles inserted into his arms to carry the lethal drugs, had little reaction and died peacefully. His only deliberate movement as the drugs entered his system was to nod to his brother-in-law, Joseph Smith, one of five personal witnesses he selected.
He was pronounced dead at 1:33 a.m., becoming the fourth Texas prison inmate this year and eighth overall to be executed since the state resumed the death penalty in 1982.
In a two-page typewritten statement released late Monday, Milton said he suffered many sleepless nights for the crime.
″I am sorry Mrs. Denton was killed in the struggle over the gun, but I didn’t even know Mrs. Denton was dead until several days later,″ he wrote. He said her husband was as much to blame because of the struggle for the weapon.
Milton’s written statement asked Allah for forgiveness. But he also criticized his attorneys for the handling of his case, saying he learned more about it through newspapers or the radio than from them.
″My final words are to my mother,″ the statement said. ″I have lived my last years as a Muslim. I die as a Muslim and I would like to be buried as a Muslim. I have no hard feeling to anyone in this world.″
He signed his statement as ″Hakeem Saboor Rahim a.k.a. Charles Milton.″
Earlier Monday he met with two sisters, his ex-wife and four children
″He would have been all right if he hadn’t got involved with dope,″ said Helen Milton, his former wife, who said he had a $600-a-day drug addiction. ″He did the best he could, and two weeks before the incident he was talking about how he was clean and going to move back in.″
Today’s death date was Milton’s third. Two earlier dates had been stayed. He had been on Death Row more than six years.
