Texas executes a man found guilty of torture, the murder of a former roommate

HUNTSVILLE, Texas – A Texas detainee who criticized a jury for sentencing him to death was executed on Wednesday night for torturing and drowning a woman from east Texas in his bathtub, and then stuffing his body into a barrel.

Troy Clark was convicted for the murder in May 1998 of a former roommate, Christina Muse of Tyler. The authorities said Clark, a drug dealer, feared Muse would be angry with him.

Clark laughed as he addressed several friends looking through a window a few feet away, telling them repeatedly that he loved them and that "everything was fine".

"I'm not the one who killed Christina," he said. "But, hey, everything that makes you happy."

As the lethal dose of sedative pentobarbital was administered, Clark laughed and noticed that the drug was "burning".

"I feel it," he said. Then he groaned, gasped, and began to snore. Seconds later, all movement stopped. He was pronounced dead 21 minutes later at 18:36.

Clark, 51, became the 17th death row in the United States this year and the ninth to a life-threatening injection in Texas, the busiest state in the country. Clark is the first of two executions this week in Texas. Daniel Acker was to be executed Thursday for crushing his girlfriend.

At least eight other Texas inmates have scheduled execution dates in the coming months.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Lyrics declined to recommend a commutation of Clark's sentence.

After his conviction, Clark had argued that his trial lawyers had failed to present evidence of his childhood, marked by physical and psychological abuse, which could have convinced the jurors to spare his life.

The courts of appeal had already ruled that because of the overwhelming case against Clark, it was likely that he would have been sentenced to death even though the jury had heard evidence of his troubled childhood.

Prosecutors said Clark overpowered 20-year-old Muse with a stun gun, taped her and left her in a closet for hours while playing video games and selling drug to a client.

Later, Clark moved Muse to a bathroom where he hit her with a board and threatened his girlfriend, Tory Bush, to help him drown Muse in the tub. Muse's body was then stuffed into a barrel with a mixture of cement and lime before being dumped into a ravine.

Against the advice of his lawyers, Clark testified during the punishment phase of his lawsuit saying, "I really do not have a story to tell, it's just that I want the death penalty. "

Prosecutors also presented evidence that Clark had committed two more murders, including one after Muse's death, but prior to his arrest. The Smith County District Attorney's Office, which sued Clark, declined to comment.

Bobby Mims, one of Clark's lawyers, said Clark had denied killing Muse.

"But there was pretty solid evidence that he was guilty." Tory Bush was pretty damning, "said Mims. Bush, who testified against Clark, was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Mims stated that he and his co-counsel were ineffective during the punishment phase by presenting evidence of Clark's troubled childhood, which included a mother incarcerated for most of his life and who had initiated him into drug.

Mims said that when the Clark case was tried in 2000, most defense lawyers had not sought to present mitigating evidence of a defendant's problematic life in the context of their efforts to prevent a death sentence.

The US 5th Appellate Court had already rejected Clark's appeals in this regard, claiming in 2012 that Clark had refused to allow his lawyers to meet relatives and others to testify on his behalf.

"At the punishment hearing, prosecutors brought in one or two family members (from Clark) and they indicated that they wanted him to be sentenced to death. C & # 39; was crazy, "said Mims.

Mims said that he did not know if the evidence of Clark's troubled life would have made a difference with the jury.

"I hope he's made peace with his creator," said Mims.