Troy Kunkle was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of Steven Horton
According to court documents Troy Kunkle and his accomplices would pick up Steven Horton who was hitchhiking. Troy would demand money from Horton before fatally shooting him
Troy Kunkle would be arrested, convicted and sentence to death
Troy Kunkle would be executed by lethal injection on January 25 2005
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When Was Troy Kunkle Executed
Troy Kunkle was executed on January 25 2005
Troy Kunkle Case
A condemned killer who twice avoided execution last year when courts halted his punishment on the day he was to die was executed Tuesday for a slaying in Corpus Christi more than 20 years ago. The execution came after the U.S. Supreme Court refused on a narrow 5-4 vote to block Troy Kunkle’s execution.
Kunkle was contrite as he looked toward the daughter and son-in-law of his victim, Stephen Horton, and sought their forgiveness. “I would like to ask you to forgive me,” he said. “I made a mistake and I am sorry for what I did. All I can do is ask you to forgive me.” Kunkle then turned his head toward an adjacent window in the death house and expressed love to witnesses he selected to watch him die, including his mother and his wife. “I love you and I will see all of you in heaven,” he said. “I love you very much. Praise Jesus.”
Kunkle recited the Lord’s Prayer and then indicated to the warden he had finished. In the seconds before the lethal drugs began taking effect, he repeatedly mouthed “I love you” to his friends and relatives. He exhaled slightly and gasped before he slipped into unconsciousness. Eight minutes later, at 8:12 p.m. CST, he was pronounced dead. “Shame to Texas,” his wife, Christa Heber, said as she watched him die.
Kunkle, 38, spent more than half of his life on death row for the death of Horton, 31, who was fatally shot and robbed of $13. The 1984 shooting gained notoriety with disclosures Kunkle, from San Antonio and then just over 18, quoted lyrics of a song by the heavy metal rock group Metallica after Horton was gunned down. The lethal injection was the second of the year in Texas, the nation’s busiest execution state.
Twice last year Kunkle was spared from the death chamber by court rulings on the day he was set to die. The most recent halt came Nov. 18 when the U.S. Supreme Court stopped the execution about 40 minutes after Kunkle could have been strapped to the death chamber gurney for injection. Tuesday’s execution date was his sixth.
In their appeal, Kunkle’s lawyers had contended jurors at his trial were not allowed to properly consider as mitigating evidence his history of alcohol and drug abuse, plus a family history of mental illness and abuse. Attorneys also contended his death sentence was unconstitutional and he improperly was denied resentencing due to procedural technicalities that limit the number of appeals on the same issues.
It was Aug. 11, 1984, when Kunkle and several friends drove from their home in San Antonio about 140 miles to the southeast to Corpus Christi for a day at the beach. They were high on drugs and beer and looking for someone to rob when they offered Horton a ride that evening. Once inside the car, a gun was put to his head and he was ordered to surrender his wallet. Horton refused and was shot. His body was pushed out of the car. His wallet, containing $13, was taken.
According to testimony at Kunkle’s capital murder trial, after shooting Horton in the head Kunkle chanted: “Another day, another death, another sorrow, another breath” — the refrain from the Metallica song “No Remorse” on the album “Kill ‘Em All.” Prosecutors also remembered him at one point during his trial playing an air guitar in the courtroom as lawyers discussed whether the Metallica song could be admitted into evidence.
Kunkle, born in Nuremberg, Germany, where his father was stationed in the military, last year told San Antonio television station KENS the slaying was a “juvenile mistake made with juvenile peer pressure.” “There’s nothing about this to be proud of,” he added. “Really, it’s kind of a shame and an embarrassment.” Three of Kunkle’s companions that day received prison terms ranging from 30 years to life.
“To this day I can recall Stephen’s face as I stood there alone with him,” Ed Wimberly, who was working as a Corpus Christi police officer at the time and found Horton’s body, recently wrote to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. “I wondered why someone would shoot him in the head and then dump his lifeless body in a field without a care in the world.”
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