Richard Dinkins was executed by the State of Texas for a double murder
According to court documents Richard Dinkins went to the Thompson’s Massage Therapy Clinic to discuss a bad check he had previously written. After a brief argument Dinkins would fatally shoot owner Katherine Thompson and customer Shelly Cutler
Richard Dinkins would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Richard Dinkins would be executed by lethal injection on January 29 2003
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When Was Richard Dinkins Executed
Richard Dinkins was executed on January 29 2003
Richard Dinkins Case
A former machinist who wrote bad checks to pay for massage treatment at a Beaumont clinic was executed tonight for gunning down the clinic owner and another woman there nearly 12 1/2 years ago. Richard Dinkins declined to make a final statement, responding to the warden, “No sir” when asked if he wanted to say anything.
In a written statement, however, he asked for forgiveness and expressed regrets “I am sorry for what happened and that it was because of me that they are gone,” he said. “If there were any way I could change things and bring them back I would. But I can’t.” Dinkins accepted responsibility for the damage his actions caused but said he had made peace with God and hoped that “soon everyone will be able to have closure in their hearts and lives.”
Dinkins gasped twice as the lethal drugs began taking effect and was pronounced dead seven minutes later at 6:18 p.m. Dinkins was the fifth Texas inmate to receive lethal injection this year and the second of three on consecutive evenings this week.
A smoke alarm brought emergency workers to the massage therapy clinic. When they arrived, instead of discovering evidence of a fire, they found the two fatally wounded women. Dinkins, 40, contended his gun “just went off” during a struggle that left clinic owner and nurse Katherine Thompson, 44, dead. Prosecutors say the shooting moments later of the second woman, Shelly Cutler, 32, convinced them and jurors that Dinkins should go to death row. “The thing that stands out is the murder of the second victim,” said Paul McWilliams, who prosecuted Dinkins for the double slaying Sept. 12, 1990. “That’s not to diminish in any way what Katherine Thompson went through, but I guess it’s one thing to know that someone is trying to kill you.”
Evidence showed Cutler, an Idaho-based traveling nurse who was filling out paperwork as a prospective patient when gunfire erupted, ran to an office, closing the door behind her. “We believe she was trying to call 911, and he reached through the window and shot her,” McWilliams said. “What she must have gone through!” “I saw someone out of the corner of my eye after Ms. Thompson was shot and I heard the door rattling,” Dinkins said last week, speaking from a steel-doored cage outside death row. “I didn’t know who was there. I could see someone with something in their hand. “I shot at the door knob to keep whoever was back there from coming out. I didn’t know I hit her. It looked like they had ducked.”
Dinkins then fled, and the smoke from the gunfire was believed to have tripped the fire alarm. “When I left there, it was all a blank,” he said.
Detectives found Dinkins’ name in Thompson’s appointment book. He had been a patient but paid Thompson with bad checks. Dinkins contended he went to the clinic to resolve the check dispute but an argument erupted, the two wrestled and his .25-caliber pistol, hidden in a sling over his arm, fell out. “She grabbed and I reached, too,” he said last week. “I probably scared her. It just went off. I wasn’t thinking right, I’m sure.”
The gun then jammed but he said he had another pistol, a .357-caliber Magnum, concealed in a boot. Both women were shot in the head with the larger weapon. Thompson died shortly after the shooting. Cutler, who had been in Beaumont only nine days, died the following day.
Dinkins lived in nearby Sour Lake and worked as a machinist for a company that made fire hydrants and water valves. He confessed to authorities. “It was my fault,” Dinkins said last week. “I guess you just say — stupidity.” Police matched his gun to the killings and blood on his clothing to the victims. “I can’t be bitter,” he said. “I’m the one who put myself in this situation.”
