Execution Report: James Earhart

James Otto Earhart, 56, was executed by lethal injection on 11 August 1999 in Huntsville, Texas for the abduction and murder of a 9-year-old girl.

On 12 May 1987, at 4:00 p.m., Pat Kirtland came home from work, expecting to find her stepdaughter, Kandy, waiting for her after coming home from school. Instead, the front door was open, and Kandy was missing. Her housekey was on the kitchen stove, and her backpack was on the front porch. Kirtland searched all over for Kandy and asked her neighbors if they had seen her. One neighbor said that he saw Kandy get off the school bus at about 3:40 p.m. He was mowing his lawn, and they waved at each other as she was walking up the sidewalk toward her home. After two hours of searching, Kirtland called police. The police initially suspected that Kandy had run away, but none of her personal belongings were missing. Kandy's mother in Houston said she had not heard from her. The police reasoned that Kandy left her backpack on the front porch so she could open the door with her key, then went inside the kitchen to put her key down. When she came back outside to retrieve her books, something happened.

While the police were still at the Kirtland home, they received a report from several neighbors that a strange man had been seen in the neighborhood several times in the last week. He was described as huge, unshaven, and having an extremely offensive body odor. The man, a junk dealer had come to one neighbor's home on 4 May in answer to a newspaper advertisement he had placed for a paint sprayer for sale. He said the stranger was 5'9" to 6'0" tall, weighed 350 to 400 pounds, had dark hair and blue eyes and "reeked to high heaven." He drove a beige 1976 Chevrolet Impala. Another neighbor reported that the junk dealer answered her ad for antique furniture for sale, and during the conversation, he kept gazing at her three-year-old daughter, who was clinging to her leg. Another neighbor reported that the man answered an ad for kittens for sale, claiming he wanted one for a birthday present for his nine-year-old daughter.

On 17 May, police released a sketch of the stranger, which they made based on the neighbors' descriptions. A caller told police that the drawing looked like James Earhart, a 44-year-old junk dealer who lived in Bryan. Police then found through a records search that Earhart owned a beige 1976 Chevrolet. They went to his tiny, junk-filled house, but he was not home, and neighbors had not seen him in days. Later, the FBI learned that a beige 1976 Chevy Impala had been traded for another car at a used car lot in Houston. The FBI showed the car dealer a photograph of James Earhart, and the dealer confirmed that he was the man who brought in the Impala. The dealer said that the man, using the name George Stevens, traded it for a 1975 Oldsmobile from his lot. The dealer said that the man was by himself - there was no girl with him.

At 2:00 a.m. on 26 May, Walker County Sheriff's Deputy Charles Applewhite was patrolling Sam Houston National Forest near Stubblefield Lake when he noticed an Oldsmobile with the front door open and a huge man sleeping inside. He ran the license plate number and found that it was registered to James Earhart. Earhart was then arrested. He admitted giving Kandy a ride in his car, but he denied killing her and said he did not know what happened to her. He said that he knew police were looking for him, but he was afraid to turn himself in. A .22-caliber handgun and a bloody shirt were recovered from his car.

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