Charles Rumbaugh was executed by the State of Texas for a murder committed during a robbery
According to court documents seventeen year old Charles Rumbaugh would rob a jewelry store and would shoot and kill the owner
Charles Rumbaugh would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Charles Rumbaugh would be executed by lethal injection on September 11 1985
Charles Rumbaugh Photos
Charles Rumbaugh FAQ
When was Charles Rumbaugh executed
Charles Rumbaugh was executed on September 11 1985
How was Charles Rumbaugh executed
Charles Rumbaugh was executed by lethal injection
Charles Rumbaugh Case
Charles Rumbaugh, 28 years old, who was convicted as a teen-ager of robbing and killing an Amarillo jeweler, was executed by lethal injection early today in the Texas death chamber. The execution was the first in more than two decades for a crime committed by someone under the age of 18.
The planned execution had drawn protests from Amnesty International because Mr. Rumbaugh was only 17 when the crime occurred. The organization, which opposes capital punishment, had contended that the execution would violate international agreements, never ratified by the United States Senate, that bar the execution of people convicted of crimes committed when they were under 18.
Charlie. Rumbaugh, who was the 48th person to be executed in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976, was pronounced dead at 12:27 A.M., said Jim Mattox, the state Attorney General.
Jovial in Final Hours
Hours before the execution, Mr. Rumbaugh was ”cutting jokes and laughing” as he visited with friends and relatives in a cell a few feet from the death chamber, a corrections department spokesman, Sarah Grisham, said. He declined to eat lunch and ordered only a flour tortilla and glass of water for his final meal, she said.
Since it resumed executions in December 1982, Texas has executed nine prisoners, and more than 200 others have death sentences pending. Two face execution next month.
Among those on death row in Texas are eight other prisoners condemned to death for juvenile crimes.
Among Mr. Rumbaugh’s last visitors were his three sisters and a brother-in-law, but his mother, who was in the prison, decided not to visit her son, a spokesman said.
Mr. Rumbaugh, who spent most of his life in reform schools, mental institutions and jails, compared his nine years on death row to serving a life sentence.
”It’s all a game I’m tired of playing,” he said.
”I believe in reincarnation,” he said. ”Whatever I did in my previous life must have been pretty bad to deserve this. Maybe when I come back next time, I’ll have learned something.”
His trouble with the law began at age 6, when he and an older brother skipped school and broke into a building in their hometown of San Angelo. At 12, he committed his first armed robbery, using a tire tool to rob a gas station and making his escape on a stolen bicycle.
On April 4, 1975, he walked into a jewelery store owned by Michael Fiorello in Amarillo, pulled a pistol and demanded money. He and Mr. Fiorello struggled, and the jeweler was fatally shot.
”He was awfully young and he had some tough breaks in life,” said Tom Curtis, the former District Attorney who prosecuted Mr. Rumbaugh. ”But Chuckie is very violent, a really hardened killer and society has to protect itself.”
