Richard Kutzner was executed by the State of Texas for two murders
According to court documents Richard Kutzner would rob and murder Kathryn Harrison in her real estate office. Seventeen days prior Kutzner would rob and murder Rita Sheron Van Huss at her home. Both women were bound with cable ties
Richard Kutzner would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Richard Kutzner would be executed by lethal injection on August 7 2002
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When Was Richard Kutzner Executed
Richard Kutzner was executed on August 7 2002
Richard Kutzner Case
William Richard Kutzner, a career criminal whose murder binge in 1996 earned him two death sentences, was executed by injection Wednesday, still maintaining he was not guilty of the crime. “I didn’t do this,” said Kutzner, addressing Rebecca Harrison, the daughter of one of his victims. “Rebecca, I understand you wanted this day to come, and you got what you wanted. But I didn’t kill your mother.”
Kutzner, 59, said that two people who once worked for him when he was an air conditioning contractor were responsible for the killing of Kathryn Harrison. He said that if several bits of biological evidence collected at the crime scene were tested for DNA, he would be exonerated. That evidence was the subject of a flurry of last-minute appeals. Kutzner said the evidence will be turned over for testing to Barry Scheck, a criminal defense lawyer in New York who heads the Innocence Project, an organized effort to bring DNA testing to capital cases in which assertions of innocence have been made.
Turning to the warden standing beside him in the death chamber, Kutzner said his execution was as much a murder as Harrison’s death. “I guess that’s it,” he said. “Send me home.” Moments later, as the first of the lethal combination of drugs began to flow, he said, “I can taste it.” Within seconds he added, “I’m gone.”
Kutzner was executed for the Jan. 22, 1996, killing of real estate agent Kathryn Harrison, 59, near The Woodlands. She was found bound and strangled to death in her office. He was also convicted of the capital murder of Reta Van Huss, the 54-year-old manager of a mini-storage warehouse in north Harris County, 17 days earlier.
In recent interviews, Kutzner acknowledged that circumstantial evidence made him appear guilty but insisted that biological evidence collected at the Harrison crime scene and never tested for DNA would prove his innocence. Kutzner’s attorneys were unsuccessful in getting an order for it in his case because of an abundance of other evidence indicating his guilt.
Both Harrison and Van Huss were strangled with plastic ties, the kind used to hold together cables or secure hoses and pipes. Both were bound with electrical wire. The same materials were found in Kutzner’s truck. A VCR and computer keyboard taken from Harrison’s office were later found in the possession of friends of Kutzner. A money order stolen from Van Huss was cashed by Kutzner.
Kutzner’s attorneys attempted to get a reprieve from Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday afternoon, arguing that the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office had agreed only at the last minute to surrender the DNA evidence — strands of short gray hairs found in the plastic tie around Harrison’s neck, a separate black hair found on her body and scrapings from beneath her fingernails.
But Gail McConnell, who handles post-conviction writs for the office, said Kutzner’s lawyers had never asked them for the material. She said the office was not opposed to testing it, only to using state funds to pay for it.