Executing the Insane: Past Witch Hunt; Current Shame
By Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
Just after noon on December 9, 2008 a corrections officer assigned to Texas’ death row was making a normal security round in Building 10 when he observed what appeared to be blood on the face of condemned inmate Andre Thomas. The inmate told the officer he had pulled out his last good eye and eaten it. Prison doctors quickly determined the condemned inmate needed additional medical treatment. Security staff transported him to the East Texas Medical Center in Tyler. After Thomas received medical treatment, the Texas Department of Public Safety and Corrections transferred him to the Jester 4 Psychiatric Unit in Richmond where he remains as of this writing.
Andre Thomas is no doubt still insane today. He was also insane on March 27, 2004 when he slaughtered three people. In fact, he was insane long before March 27, 2004. Everyone in Grayson County seemed to know it. Leyha Marie Hughes’ father especially knew it, He repeatedly told the local police after his daughter’s murder that “Andre Thomas was crazy, unstable, everyone knew him and his entire family was crazy.” Even Thomas himself seem to know he was crazy. As the Grits-for-Breakfast blog reported on January 21, 2009, Thomas twice unsuccessfully sought psychiatric help from a Grayson County hospital before March 27, 2004—the day he killed Leyha Marie Hughes. In fact, the very day before he killed the little 13-month-old Leyha, a social worker named Sherrie St. Cyr and physician named William Bowen spoke to Thomas in the emergency room at the Texoma Medical Center. Both thought he was psychotic and should be admitted to a psychiatric facility. But, tragically, he was not.
Finally, on March 27, 2004, it happened. What Leyha’s father knew would happen at some time. Something snapped inside the disordered head of Andre Thomas. He walked to the home of his ex-wife, Laura Boren Thomas. Armed with a knife, he arrived at the residence at 7:22 a.m. He kicked in the front door. He found Laura, their four-year-old-son Andre, and baby Leyha home alone. What happened next was a “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” revisited. Andre repeatedly stabbed Laura, Andre, and Leyha before brutally mutilating them by removing their hearts from their lifeless bodies. Each victim was left with large, gaping wounds in their chest.
Thomas placed the three bloody hearts in his pockets and calmly walked out of the house. He must have felt pretty good. He had just finished “God’s work.” He believed the three people he had just slaughtered were “evil” and possessed by demons. God had recently told him that Laura had been acting like a “jezebel” and that little Andre was the “anti-Christ.” (more…)
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