Ryan Dickson was executed by the State of Texas for two murders committed during a robbery
According to court documents Ryan Dickson and his teenage accomplice would enter a store where the couple who owned the shop would be shot and killed: Carmelo Surace and Marie Surace
Ryan Dickson would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Ryan Dickson would be executed by lethal injection on April 26 2007
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When Was Ryan Dickson Executed
Ryan Dickson was executed on April 26 2007
Ryan Dickson Case
Convicted killer Ryan Dickson described himself as a fighter with little respect for rules, but the 30-year-old condemned for killing an Amarillo couple during a robbery was cooperative with Texas prison officials and quietly went to his death.
“I am sorry for what I did and I take responsibility for what I did,” he said, speaking rapidly from the Texas death chamber gurney Thursday evening after expressing love to his family and apologizing to the survivors of his victims. Eight minutes later, he was pronounced dead.
Dickson was convinced the legal system was a game he couldn’t beat and had promised to be difficult. But nothing unusual occurred as he became the 13th inmate to receive lethal injection this year in the nation’s busiest capital punishment state.
Attorneys trying to stop the execution of the former street gang member went to the federal courts Thursday with a last-day appeal, challenging the constitutionality of the state’s lethal injection procedure. A federal judge in Amarillo, then the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, turned them down. Lawyers did not appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
No friends or relatives of victims Carmelo Surace, 61, and his wife, Marie, 60, attended the execution. “I am responsible for them losing their mother, their father, their grandfather and grandmother,” he said from the gurney. “I never meant for them to be taken.” Dickson wanted no witnesses of his own to watch him die. “It’s part of the circus and I refuse to be part of the circus,” he said in a recent interview. “I ain’t got no choice about being there, but I ain’t gonna bring any of my people into it.”
Dickson had frequent run-ins with the law as a juvenile, including burglary and assault arrests, was on probation at age 9 for stealing bikes and served time with the Texas Youth Commission. “Breaking into houses, cars, stuff like that,” he told The Associated Press.
He fathered a daughter at age 15. He was just two weeks past his 18th birthday when he was arrested in the double homicide — hours after the bodies of Surace and his wife were found by a customer at their store in Amarillo.
Police found a witness who recognized four young people running from the store Nov. 27, 1994, as being from the neighborhood. Dickson, his 14-year-old brother, Dane, and two friends soon were taken into custody.
Prosecutors said Dickson told authorities he hoped the killing would earn him a teardrop tattoo to impress his colleagues in a gang known as the Varrio 16 Locos, or “VSL,” as Dickson called it. They shared some marijuana at Dickson’s home, then he decided he wanted some beer but didn’t want to pay for it.
Armed with a .22-caliber sawed-off rifle, he went inside the store. His brother stood guard at the door. Two other friends waited outside. He blamed Carmelo Surace for confronting him. “I didn’t go in there and pull a gun and start shooting people,” Dickson insisted. He contended the store owner must have spotted the weapon hidden in his jacket, tried to wrest it away from him and was shot in the tussle.
“Nobody would have gotten shot,” he said. “I would have grabbed some beer and ran out. They would have been out about $20 and we’d be at home getting drunk. That’s what would have happened.” He also insisted Marie Surace was shot by accident.
Dickson received death sentences for each slaying. Thursday’s punishment was for Carmelo Surace’s murder. His brother is serving a 15-year prison term.
Former Potter County District Attorney Rebecca King, who prosecuted the two capital murder cases against Dickson, disputed his story of the shootings, especially Marie Surace’s death. The woman was trying to make a phone call, she said. “He came up after he shot the man,” King said. “She had a phone in her hand. “She was on her knees. He shot her. Totally cold.”
At least nine other Texas inmates have execution dates in the coming months. Scheduled next is Jose Moreno, 40, set to die May 10 for the abduction and fatal shooting of a San Antonio man 21 years ago.