Robert Henry was executed by the State of Texas for a double murder
According to court documents Robert Henry would go to the home of the two victims, Carol Lea Arnold, age 57, and her mother Hazel Rumohr, age 83, and would stab the two women to death. Henry would turn himself into authorities two months later making a full confession
Robert Henry would be convicted and sentenced to death
Robert Henry would be executed by lethal injection on November 20 2003
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When Was Robert Henry Executed
Robert Henry was executed on November 20 2003
Robert Henry Case
The convicted killer of an elderly woman and her daughter at their Corpus Christi-area home was executed Thursday night, the first in the nation’s busiest capital punishment state in nearly 2 1/2 months.
Robert Henry, 41, replied, “No sir,” when asked by the warden if he had a final statement. In the seconds before the drugs began taking effect, he smiled and nodded toward some friends and relatives watching nearby through a window, then mouthed, “Bye-bye. I love you. Here I go.” Then he blew them a kiss and immediately snorted and gasped as the drugs took effect. Eight minutes later, at 6:19 p.m. he was pronounced dead. He never looked at relatives of his two victims, who were watching through another window.
Henry was condemned for the fatal beating and stabbing of Hazel Rumohr, 83, and her daughter, Carol Arnold, 57, more than 10 years ago at their home in Portland, across the bay from Corpus Christi. The U.S. Supreme Court last month refused to review his case and no 11th-hour appeals were filed to try to stop the lethal injection.
Henry, a family acquaintance, confessed to the slaying to a police officer some two months after the killings over the Labor Day weekend in 1993 but subsequently denied involvement in the deaths. “I kind of got suckered through the whole system,” he said in an interview last week. “I’m getting a bum rap. You can’t avoid it… I’m stuck.” The victims were stabbed and slashed with what authorities believed was a survivalist knife. Arnold’s face was beaten so badly that a neighbor could not identify her except by jewelry and clothing. “Asking him why would be redundant at this point,” said Linda Callais, whose mother and grandmother were killed. “I’m not accepting any answers out of him. … He couldn’t say anything to change my mind or make me feel any better.”
Henry was the 22nd convicted killer to receive lethal injection in Texas this year and the first since early September.
The 2 1/2-month hiatus has been the most lengthy pause in capital punishment in Texas in some seven years, although officials say the lull is probably a coincidence. Five more Texas inmates are scheduled to die next month, and at least six more are on the execution calendar for early 2004. While the pace of executions may have slowed somewhat, the number of convicted killers sentenced to die has not. At the same time during the past 2 1/2 months, at least five new capital murder convicts have been sent to Texas’ death row, which now houses about 450 inmates.
San Patricio County District Attorney Patrick Flanigan, who prosecuted Henry, said physical evidence tying him to the slayings was overwhelming and included his blood, his boot print at the murder scene and a victim’s blood in his car. “When the crime was committed, it sure sent a shock wave through the city of Portland,” Flanigan said of the community of about 15,000. “You really don’t expect this kind of thing to happen. We all think the big city is where particularly bad stuff is happening.”
Henry had been friends with Arnold’s son during their teen years and had no previous criminal record. His work, reviewing accident reports for a company that sold the information to physicians, lawyers and others, took him often to the police department where he said he heard conversations about the slayings. “I started having nightmares,” Henry said. “I had a nervous breakdown.”
