Bobby Lee Hines executed in Texas, 11th inmate to die this year
The Texas death chamber in Huntsville.
It took a court five months to convict him, but the State of Texas 21 years – nearly to the day – to execute Bobby Lee Hines.
Even after watching the man who murdered his daughter die just after 6 pm local time in Huntsville from a lethal injection, Harold Haupt said he wasn’t satisfied.
“He didn’t suffer like my daughter did,” Haupt told The Associated Press. “He got like a forever sleeping pill.”
Hines strangled and stabbed Michelle Wendy Haupt 18 times on October 20, 1991 after breaking into her apartment using a master key stolen from his roommate, the building superintendent.
Neighbors heard her screaming, but police who responded couldn’t find the apartment it was coming from.
The apartment manager eventually checked Michelle Haupt’s apartment and found her body just inside the door, Reuters reported.
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Someone stabbed her with an ice pick and strangled her with stereo wire, according to Reuters.
Police found blood from Hines, then 19, on her clothing and the 26-year-old Haupt’s necklace charm in his pocket.
A court convicted him in March 1992 and sentenced him to die in 2003, but it took courts eight years to determine the validity of claims he was mentally ill, the AP said.
His defense lawyer appealed saying the court ignored Hines’s violent and abusive upbringing, while relatives sued the courts because he spent more than 20 years on death row, the AP said.
A judge dismissed the appeal and sentenced Hines to die in June, but Dallas County District Attorney’s Office withdrew the date to perform a final DNA test, The Huntsville Item said.
Test results didn’t exclude Hines, and a court again scheduled him to die.
Hines is the 11th prisoner executed in Texas this year, and the 34th in the US.
Before his death, Hines tried to apologize.
“I wish there was something I could do,” he said before a doctor pronounced him dead at 6:28 pm.
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