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Inmate who received reprieve last year executed
January 9, 2002 TEXAS-----execution
A man who stalked high
school girls was executed Wednesday night for
killing the mother of
one of his stalking victims during a burglary of
her home.
Michael Moore, 38, was
apologetic and appeared to choke back tears as he
expressed love for his
family and sought forgiveness for the slaying of
Christa Bentley.
"If I could think of a
word in the vocabulary stronger, you need to hear
something stronger, you
deserve something stronger," he said, looking at
family members of the
victim. They watched through a window a few feet
way. "I'm sorry. I can't
take back what I have done."
Moore told his family
members, including his mother and stepfather, that
he would be waiting for
them in heaven. "Do not disappoint me by not
showing up," he said.
He nodded twice, then
gasped and sputtered as his family broke into a
verse of the hymn "Amazing
Grace."
9 minutes later, at 6:32 p.m., he was pronounced dead.
Moore was set to die last
March but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
halted the punishment
a day before his scheduled execution. In November,
the same court dismissed
his appeal and no other court action was filed.
"I had prayed to the Lord
for more time," he said in a recent death row
interview. "I thought
I wasn't spiritually ready. He granted me 10 more
months.
"This time, I did not ask for more time," Moore said.
Moore was arrested the
early morning hours of Feb. 26, 1994, after police
in Copperas Cove, about
50 miles southwest of Waco, pursued a car
speeding with its lights
off on a 2-lane country road. Moore pulled over
after about 20 miles
and took off running across a field. When police
apprehended him, he confessed
to killing Bentley, 35.
In their investigation,
authorities found he had compiled a notebook he
called "The Girls of
Copperas Cove" that included the names and addresses
of some 300 teen-age
girls, including Bentley's daughter. Several had
reported burglaries at
their homes and others had received threatening
letters.
Weapons left at the Bentley
slaying - a knife and a .22-caliber pistol -
were stolen in the burglaries.
Prosecutors said Moore
had established a pattern of breaking into homes
that were occupied. They
also said the presence of Bentley's car outside
the home that night led
him to believe the woman's teen-age daughter,
known as T.R., was at
home. Unknown to him, she was at a friend's house.
Moore said he went through
high school yearbooks and "made a list of the
most attractive girls
and started following them around."
He said on the day of
the murder he had been drinking all day - something
he learned while serving
9 years in the Navy - and contended he
remembered little of
the fatal attack.
"I remember looking for
valuables and I heard a woman's voice calling
out," he said.
As he walked by the woman's bedroom, he said she grabbed him.
"I remember stabbing her
but only a couple of stabs. I remember shooting
at her but don't know
if I hit her," he said, contending he "blacked out."
"I don't know any other word to explain," he said.
Bentley's 14-year-old
son was awakened by his mother's screams and called
police as her attacker
fled.
At his trial, Moore's
attorneys tried to convince a jury he was abused as
a child, was kept in
foster care in his native Buffalo, N.Y., area, found
stability while in the
Navy but took a bad turn after he was jilted by
his fiancee 2 weeks before
they were to be married.
"I can cry all I want
about how people beat me," he said. "The fact is
none of that contributed.
I was the one who walked into that house that
night.
"I've been trying to come
up with a word to express my sincere apology,
but there's nothing in
the thesaurus, there's nothing strong enough,
nothing other than 'sorry,'"
he said from death row.
Sandy Gately, the former
Coryell County district attorney who prosecuted
Moore, said this week
she didn't buy his apology.
"I never saw any remorse at all," she said.
The next execution is
set for Jan. 16 when Jermarr Arnold, 43, faces
injection for fatally
shooting a Corpus Christi jewelry store clerk
during a robbery in 1983.
Moore becomes the 1st
condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas this
year, and the 257th overall
since the state resumed capital punishment on
December 7, 1982. Texas
has carried out 150 executions since 1997, and
already has 9 more executions
scheduled through May 1.
Moore becomes the 2nd
condemned inmate to be put to death this year in
the USA and the 751st
overall since America resumed executions on January
17, 1977.
(sources: Associated Press
& Rick Halperin)
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