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Date of
Execution:
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October 30,
1984 |
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Offender:
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Thomas
Barefoot #621 |
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Last
Statement: |
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When asked if he
had a last statement, he replied, "Yes, I do.
"I hope that one
day we can look back on the evil that we’re doing right now
like the witches we burned at the stake. I want everybody to
know that I hold nothing against them. I forgive them all. I
hope everybody I’ve done anything to will forgive me. I’ve
been praying all day for Carl Levin’s wife to drive the
bitterness from her heart because that bitterness that’s in
her heart will send her to Hell just as surely as any other
sin. I’m sorry for everything I’ve ever done to anybody. I
hope they’ll forgive me.
"Sharon, tell all
my friends goodbye. You know who they are: Charles Bass,
David Powell…" Then he coughed and nothing else was said. |
Thomas Barefoot
At the age of 38, Thomas Andy
Barefoot did the unthinkable. He shot a police officer in Harker
Heights, Texas, on Aug. 7, 1978. The officer, Carl LeVin, was 31
years old and had a wife and five children.
Barefoot shot Le Vin in the head
with a .25 caliber pistol while trying to avoid arrest for the rape
of a three year old girl. A manhunt soon began for Barefoot with
help from the Killeen and Nolanville Police Departments, Bell County
Sheriff’s Department, Texas Rangers and the FBI.
Barefoot was soon captured and put
on trial. He was later convicted and sentenced to execution by
injection. His first appeals were denied, but in Jan. of 1983,
just 83 hours before his scheduled execution, Barefoot was granted a
stay by the U.S. Supreme Court. He had not exhausted all appeals so
a decision like this one usually triggered no complaints. But one
month earlier, in December, an almost identical case was brought to
the Supreme Court and rejected. The case of Charlie Brooks, another
Texas murderer, was not granted a stay even though he had not
exhausted all of his appeals. Brooks and an accomplice were
involved in the murder of a mechanic, but Brooks was never convicted
of being the “trigger man.” These two cases sparked many questions
about the Supreme Court’s capital punishment approach.
At 10:10 a.m. on Oct. 30, 1984,
the Supreme Court turned down his final appeal. Barefoot was the
25th prisoner to be executed since the death penalty was reinstated
in Texas in 1976. |
