Booking photo shows Brent Ray Brewer who was executed on Thursday evening for fatally stabbing an Amarillo man during a robbery more than 33 years ago (Picture: Texas Department of Criminal Justice/AP)
A death row inmate uttered his final words to the family of a man he stabbed to death over $140 before receiving a lethal injection.
Brent Ray Brewer knifed Robert Laminack, 66, in the neck as the victim drove him and his girlfriend to a Salvation Army in April 1990. Brewer robbed $140 from Laminack.
Brewer issued his last statement to Laminack’s family after a prayer with a spiritual adviser in the death chamber on Thursday evening.
‘I would like to tell the family of the victim that I could never figure out the words to fix what I have broken,’ Brewer said as the Laminack family feet away from him through a window.
‘I just want you to know that this 53-year-old is not the same reckless 19-year-old kid from 1990.
‘I hope you find peace, and I mean it.’
Brewer was administered a ethal dose of pentobarbital at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas. He gasped two times, snored a few and took several last breaths and was lifeless in about 30 seconds. He was pronounced dead 15 minutes after the injection, at 6.39pm.
Laminack daughter, Debra Corbin, said that watching Brewer’s execution gave the family some peace.
‘Brent Ray Brewer was in prison more than 33 years,’ said Corbin. ‘Our mom says our family has been in prison 33 years. We have been released today.’
Brewer and his girlfriend went up to Laminack at his flooring store in Amarillo before attacking him. Brewer was convicted of capital murder and given the death sentence in 1991.
His death sentence was overturned in 2007 by a US Supreme Court ruling that the jury in his case did not have proper instructions to determine who should be executed. Brewer’s attorneys argued that jurors were not allowed to take into account that Brewer suffered child abuse and mental illness.
In a new trial in 2009, Brewer received the death penalty again.
Last Tuesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals voted 7-0 against commuting Brewer’s death sentence to a lesser penalty.
His lawyer Shawn Nolan said his legal team was ‘deeply disturbed’ that the appeals court ‘refuses to address the injustice of allowing Brent Brewer to be executed without an opportunity to challenge’ prosecution expert Richard Coons’ claim that Brewer posed a future danger.
Brewer is the seventh inmate to be executed in Texas this year and the 21st in the US.
Brent Ray Brewer, who fatally stabbed Robert Laminack in 1990, gave a final statement to the victim’s family.
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