William Burns

William Kendrick Burns, 43, was executed by lethal injection on 11 April in Huntsville, Texas for the robbery and murder of a worker at a plant.

In March 1981, William Burns, 22, his brother, Victor Burns, 17, and Danny Harris, 20, went to an East Texas wood preserving plant where William used to work. William was carrying a .22-caliber Winchester rifle and a .22-caliber pistol, which was hidden in his pants. It was almost midnight. As they approached a large tin building, William Burns looked through a crack and saw Johnny Lynn Hamlett, 18, working inside. He then gave the rifle to Harris and drew his pistol. Burns fired two shots through the crack at Hamlett. Harris fired a large number of shots from the rifle through a different opening. Then Burns and Harris went inside and took Hamlett's billfold. They came outside and divided the money -- about $110 -- with Victor Burns, who remained outside the building. William Burns also decided to keep the billfold. The next day, he emptied the contents of the billfold into a coffee can and threw the can onto the side of a road.

Acting on a tip, authorities investigated William Burns. He directed them to the discarded coffee can containing Hamlett's drivers license and other personal papers. The coffee can also contained a traffic ticket issued to Burns. When Burns was arrested, he was still carrying Hamlett's billfold, which contained a newspaper clipping about the murder. Burns also directed police to the rifle, which was confirmed to have fired at least seven of the eleven rounds recovered from Hamlett's body. Testing also showed that two of the .22-caliber bullets recovered from the body were not fired by the Winchester rifle. Burns told police where to find the pistol he used, but that weapon was never recovered.

William and Victor Burns were also believed to be responsible for an incident in February 1980 in which Leon Calahan was shot to death and Bryan Keith Sanders was abducted for the purpose of being murdered. A Department of Public Safety trooper interrupted the Sanders abduction in progress, and William and Victor Burns were arrested. They were free on bond and awaiting trial when they killed and robbed Johnny Hamlett.

William Burns was fired from the wood processing plant two months before Hamlett's murder and Hamlett had the same job formerly held by Burns. After he was fired, Burns left the president of the company a note saying that he would be sorry.

William and Victor Burns were convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in September 1981 in a joint trial. Danny Ray Harris was indicted separately, and charges against him were eventually dropped.

In 1985, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the Burns brothers' convictions because of a jury instruction error. On retrial, Victor Renay Burns pled guilty to non-capital murder and was sentenced to life in prison. William Burns was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death again in July 1986. That conviction and sentence were later overturned because of improperly excluded mitigating evidence.

William Burns was tried for a third time and was convicted and sentenced to death in August 1989. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the third conviction in 1993, and all of Burns' subsequent appeals in state and federal court were denied.

Burns did not speak to reporters prior to his execution, but he told a case worker investigating his clemency request that the slaying was the result of being "in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"I just want to tell my Mom that I am sorry that I caused her so much pain," Burns said in his final statement. He said that he loved his family, and "I hurt for the fact that they are going to be hurting. I really hate that; and that I'm hoping they are going to be O.K." William Burns was pronounced dead at 6:21 p.m.

Victor Burns is still behind bars as of this writing. He is eligible for parole, but his parole request was denied last year.

A Texas prisoner named Danny Ray Harris was executed in 1993. According to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's web site, that is the same Danny Ray Harris who was involved in the Hamlett murder. However, the Harris who was executed in 1993 was sent to death row in February 1980, and thus would have been in prison at the time of Hamlett's murder.