Jeffrey Dillingham was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of Caren Koslow
According to court documents Jeffrey Dillingham was hired by seventeen year old Kristi Koslow to murder her parents. Kristi Koslow had promised a million dollars out of her inheritance.
Jeffrey Dillingham and an accomplice would go to the Koslow residence and walked in, the alarm system was disarmed by Kristi Koslow. Dillingham would then beat the Koslow’s, killing Caren Koslow, with a tire iron
Jeffrey Dillingham would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Jeffrey Dillingham would be executed by lethal injection on November 1 2000
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When Was Jeffrey Dillingham Executed
Jeffrey Dillingham was executed on November 1 2000
Jeffrey Dillingham Case
Jeffrey Dillingham, smiling, winking and blowing kisses at relatives, went to his death Wednesday for fatally beating a Fort Worth woman in a murder-for-hire scheme he thought would get him $1 million from the victim’s stepdaughter. “I would just like to apologize to the victims of the family for what I did,” he said in his final statement. “I take full responsibility for that poor woman’s death and for the pain and suffering I inflicted on Mr. Koslow.”
Dillingham, 27, confessed to police as the murder plot unraveled some two weeks after Caren Koslow was slashed and beaten to death with a metal pry bar in an attack at her home. Her husband, Jack, was beaten and left for dead but survived. Dillingham, in his last comments, recited a prayer in which he thanked God and his parents. “Thank you heavenly father for getting me off of death row and for bringing me home out of prison,” he said. Looking toward family members, he repeatedly mouthed, “I love you all, you all take care.” Then he smiled and winked before grunting and gasping as the drugs took effect. He died at 6:28 p.m., eight minutes after the lethal dose was administered. Dillingham’s father, his father’s fiancee and his stepfather were led in prayer during the execution by two spiritual advisers. No one was present from the victim’s family. Outside, about a dozen demonstrators held candles during a steady downpour.
The bloodshed occurred six days after Dillingham, who worked in a video store, turned 19. An accomplice, Brian Salter, and his girlfriend, Kristi Koslow, the murder victim’s stepdaughter, both received life prison terms. Dillingham rejected a plea bargain and a jury sentenced him to death.
On Tuesday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected requests for commutation, a pardon and a reprieve. Dillingham’s lawyers had argued it was unfair that his two accomplices received life terms and he got death. Dillingham was the 34th convicted killer to receive lethal injection in Texas this year, three short of the record 37 executed in 1997 in the nation’s most active death penalty state. He was the first of six set to die over the next 16 days. Salter, also 19 at the time, testified against Kristi Koslow, who then was 17. They both are eligible for parole in about 27 years. Testimony showed she wanted her father and stepmother dead because she didn’t get along with them after her father remarried. She also believed she would inherit as much as $12 million and she had promised $1 million to Dillingham.
“Dillingham did not even know the victim,” recalled Robert Mayfield, one of the prosecutors in the case. “But it didn’t matter to him. He was going to get a million dollars. That was the key point. What I argued to the jury is that he did a cost-effective analysis, and stepping over two bodies was nothing.” In the early hours of March 12, 1992, according to testimony, the men arrived with a drawing of the 4,000-square-foot house and codes to disable an alarm system – both provided by Kristi Koslow. They broke through a door, went to an upstairs bedroom and ordered the couple to the floor. Jack Koslow tried to load a shotgun he kept in a nearby closet. Jurors heard how the man and woman were attacked and how the intruders left with $120 and Jack Koslow’s wallet. Blows to Caren Koslow broke her skull and jaw. The slashing of her neck nearly decapitated her.
