Monty Delk was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of Gene Allen
According to court documents Monty Delk would answer ad for the sale of a vehicle. He would go to meet the vehicle’s owner Gene Allen. Delk would murder Gene Allen and take the car
Monty Delk would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Monty Delk would be executed by lethal injection on February 28 2002
Monty Delk was basically insane and how he was found competent is beyond me
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When Was Monty Delk Executed
Monty Delk was executed on February 28 2002
Monty Delk Case
Delk, strapped to the Texas death chamber gurney, shouted gibberish and obscenities before the lethal drugs knocked him unconscious.
“I am the warden,” he shouted as Warden Neill Hodges asked him if he had any final statement. “Get your warden off this gurney and shut up,” Delk said.
After spouting more profanity, Delk blurted out, “You are not in America. This is the island of Barbados. People will see you doing this.”
He stopped in mid-sentence as the drugs took effect. He became silent, his mouth and eyes both wide open. Six minutes later, he was pronounced dead at 7:53 p.m. CST.
His victim’s widow nearly fainted while watching Delk die and had to be taken away in a wheelchair.
“Nothing that could have come out of his mouth could have fazed us,” said witness Shelly Snell, whose brother was killed by Delk.
“That was the one thing that shut him up,” she said of the drugs.
Delk’s execution, the fifth this year in Texas, was delayed more than an hour while the U.S. Supreme Court considered an 11th-hour appeal. It came about five hours after a federal appeals court agreed with state attorneys and lifted a reprieve that would have blocked the punishment.
U.S. District Judge Richard Schell of Beaumont, acting on an appeal from Delk’s lawyers, issued a stay Wednesday, but the Texas attorney general’s office went to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to get the reprieve vacated. The Supreme Court denied Delk’s application for a stay at 7:05 p.m.
Delk’s lawyer, John Wright of Huntsville, contended Delk, who turned 35 on Sunday, was too mentally ill to assist in his own defense and was incompetent to be executed.
Delk, who refused to select a final meal, took his first shower in months late Wednesday in exchange for some commissary privileges, prison officials said. His prison activity in recent years has been marked by a lack of personal hygiene and bizarre behavior.
Wright described Delk as having “long periods of psychotic thought punctuated by grandiose delusions, incoherent ramblings and smearing himself with his own feces, interspersed with brief moments of lucidity and compliance.”
State attorneys and prosecutors in Anderson County, where Delk was convicted in 1988, contended Delk’s behavior was an act.
“Delk has a history of manipulation,” the state said in its motion to the appeals court. “He finds it in his best interest to appear incompetent when an audience is available.”
In a 1986 ruling in a Florida case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional to give a death sentence to someone who is insane. While not defining insanity, the court said a person must be aware of the punishment and the reason for it.
Delk was condemned for killing Gene Olan “Bubba” Allen II of Grapeland. Allen’s body was found in a remote area of Anderson County, about 140 miles north of Houston. He had been shot in the head with a shotgun. His wife, Sheila, last saw him Nov. 29, 1986, driving away with Delk, who had called earlier about a newspaper ad that listed their car for sale. He wanted to take a test drive.
Several days later Delk was arrested in Winnfield, La. He was driving the car, had the sawed-off shotgun used to kill Allen and was carrying the photograph of Allen’s wife.
“I’m glad I was here,” Allen’s widow, Sheila, said. “If I wasn’t here to witness it would be hard for me to believe he was really gone.”
Delk’s mental competency was reviewed by his trial court in 1997. The court ruled his behavior, which at the time required him to be gagged in the courtroom because of his repeated outbursts, was voluntary.
In a recent death row interview, Delk claimed to be a commando, the prison warden and a police chief, among others. He said a 900,000-foot submarine was at the prison the previous night and that he had helped open the hatch on the vessel. He gave his age as 50, then 99, then said he didn’t remember.
“I was born old,” he said, adding that he had been married 95 million years ago, that he had children born in prison and that he craved vanilla wafers.
Retired Anderson County District Attorney Richard Handorf, who prosecuted Delk, said he questioned Delk’s intelligence, not his mental competency at the 1988 trial.
“I don’t recall him acting that way during the trial,” Handorf said. “One of the things that stands out in my mind is when he was arrested, he had in his billfold or on his person the picture of the dead man’s wife. As I understand it, he told his own lawyers it was his girlfriend or his old girlfriend.
“To me, that showed very bad judgment on his part.”
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