Armed with a .38-caliber pistol, prosecutors said he shot Brewer, his cousin and his great-aunt's daughter, as she was seated in a recliner. Then he moved on to the children, shooting the 6-year-old as she watched cartoons on television, and the 3-year-old as she cowered in a corner of the room, her hands over her ears.
dallasnews.com
Unlike the Maryland case, it's nice to see justice served in this one.
Justices' questions don't stop execution
Inmate was 17 when he killed 3 relatives, including 2 children
08/29/2002
Associated Press
HUNTSVILLE, Texas – Apologetic but maintaining his innocence, a former teenage drug dealer was executed Wednesday evening for killing a 3-year-old cousin at her Dallas home – one of three relatives gunned down – so he could steal some fancy car wheels.
"I am sorry for the pain, sorry for what I caused my friends, family and loved ones," Toronto Patterson, now 24, said while strapped to the death chamber gurney.
"I feel a great deal of responsibility and guilt for what happened.
"I should be punished for the crime, but I do not think I should die for a crime I did not commit."
Patterson said that while he was sorry, nothing could bring back the victims. He prayed his death would bring peace and unite his family.
"I ask for your forgiveness and that you will all forgive me," he said. "I invite you all to my funeral. We are still family."
As the drugs began taking effect, Patterson exhaled and then gasped. Nine minutes later at 6:20 p.m. CDT, he was pronounced dead.
Patterson was 17 when he was arrested for the fatal shootings of Ollie Brown, 3; her sister, Jennifer, 6; and their mother, Kimberly Brewer, 25.
His age at the time of the slayings renewed criticism of capital punishment for teenagers from death penalty opponents.
Two other condemned killers were executed in Texas – one three weeks ago and another in May – for crimes committed when they were 17. While execution critics referred to them as juveniles, under the law in Texas and at least 21 other states they were adults.
Toronto Patterson
Patterson was the 23rd Texas inmate executed this year and the fifth this month. Five more are scheduled to die in September.
"I'm scared, but being here, seeing so many other people with dates dying, and how everything gets in motion, I pretty much seen how things are going to go. I guess you'd say – something like a routine," Patterson said in an interview last week on death row, where he is known as "Tonto."
Patterson was the 13th Texas inmate and the 21st in the United States put to death since 1976 for a murder committed when the killer was younger than 18.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles earlier this week refused requests for a reprieve or for clemency.
Patterson's attorneys appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, contending his punishment, because of his age at the time of the crime, would be unconstitutional cruel and unusual punishment. About two hours before his scheduled execution time, the high court, in a 6-3 vote, rejected his appeal.
"Such executions not only violate international norms, they also offend human decency," said Steven Hawkins, executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "The mind of a juvenile offender is by definition less developed than the mind of an adult."
Not so, said George West, one of the Dallas County district attorneys who prosecuted Patterson.
"The stated age of an individual is one thing, their maturity and experience is another," West said. "And this guy wasn't a dummy."
Evidence showed Patterson went to the home of his great-aunt on June 6, 1995, so he could steal the chrome wheels from a BMW stored there. Similar wheels on his own car had been stolen.
Armed with a .38-caliber pistol, prosecutors said he shot Brewer, his cousin and his great-aunt's daughter, as she was seated in a recliner. Then he moved on to the children, shooting the 6-year-old as she watched cartoons on television, and the 3-year-old as she cowered in a corner of the room, her hands over her ears.
"It was extremely sad," West said this week. "The only person who could stop him physically was Kimberly, the woman... But what does he do? He decides: 'I've got to eliminate eyewitnesses because that means I could try to increase my odds of not getting caught. So I eliminate the two kids who know me.'
"No question about thought processes there," West added. "There was no need to kill the kids otherwise."
Authorities said he then took three rims from the car but was unable to remove the fourth. His fingerprints were found on the rims, left at his girlfriend's house. His bloody clothing was traced to the victims. He told his girlfriend he had robbed and shot someone.
He was arrested the following day. Police saw him in news footage in the crowd outside his cousins' house as the bodies were being removed. He was not grieving, prosecutors recalled.
In testimony at his trial and in interviews, he blamed the deaths on unnamed "Jamaicans."
"I wasn't there when the shootings occurred," he said last week.
"It was a hokey story," said Jason January, another of the prosecutors in Patterson's case. "We were very very confident we got the right man." |
