So-called “Ice Pick Killer” Danny Paul Bible, convicted for a slew of killings and rapes, was executed by the state of Texas via lethal injection, and officials ignored his request to be killed by firing squad or nitrogen gas.
Bible was executed Wednesday night after unsuccessful appeals argued that this health issues made it likely that the execution would be botched and cause him more pain than necessary.
The 66-year-old was blamed for four murders and nine rapes. In May 1979, in Harris County, Bible attacked and sexually assaulted woman that came to his residence to use the phone; he then stabbed the victim multiple times, resulting in her death. He killed three other people in the 1980s. In 1998, according to the Houston Chronicle, police picked him up in Florida, to which he confessed.
“Danny Paul Bible is as vile and evil a person that has ever drawn breath,” Larry Lance, whose sister, Pam Hudgins, was killed by Bible, as reported by Click2Houston.com.
Hudgins noted: “We’re glad to have witnessed him draw his last breath. I know he will burn in hell for eternity.”
When asked about his final statement, Bible said, “No, sir.” When he was given a lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital, he began shaking his head slightly. CNN reported that Bible muttered that “it hurts” and what sounded like “burning.”
His lawyers argued that Bible had a “galaxy of medical issues” that raised the possibility that his execution via lethal injection would be botched, saying it would violate the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. “Texas will almost certainly join Alabama and Ohio and add itself to the unconscionable list of botched executions in America,” attorney Jeremy Schepers said before the execution, according to the Chronicle.
Reports said that Bible’s lawyers asked for death via firing squad or by gas, which aren’t offered in Texas. Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Utah allow inmates to choose the firing squad, although lethal injection is the primary method, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Six states offer gas, but lethal injection is the primary method.
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