Ryan Dickson

Ryan Heath Dickson, 30, was executed by lethal injection on 26 April 2007 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of a couple while robbing a store.

In the afternoon of 27 November 1994, four young men went to a small Amarillo grocery store. Freddie Medina and Jeremy Brown waited outside while Dickson, then 18, and his brother, Dane, 14, went inside. Dane Dickson stood guard near the door. Ryan was attempting to steal some beer from the store when the owner, Carmelo Surace, 61, confronted him. Dickson then pulled out a sawn-off .22-caliber rifle from underneath his coat and shot Surace once in the chest. Surace's wife, Marie, 60, placed all of the money from the store cash register on the counter for him to take. Dickson then shot her as well. He and his friends left the store with $52 in cash and some beer. A customer found the victims and called the police. Marie Surace was dead when the police arrived. Carmelo died later.

Local residents described to the police four young men they had seen in the vicinity of the grocery store. Using these descriptions, police took the group in for questioning. Ryan Dickson confessed to shooting both victims.

Dickson was tried first for Carmelo's murder. He acknowledged killing Mr. Surace, but denied that he did so intentionally. He argued that Surace was killed during a struggle. Freddie Medina, however, testified that before entering the store, Dickson showed him a gun and told him that he was going to shoot the store owners with it. Jeremy Brown also testified that Dickson stated his intention of killing the store owners. Prosecutors said Dickson told authorities he hoped the killing would earn him a teardrop tattoo to impress his colleagues in a gang known as the Varrio 16 Locos.

At only 18 years of age, Dickson had an extensive juvenile record that included burglary and aggravated assault.

A jury convicted Dickson of capital murder in December 1997 and sentenced him to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence in April 2000. All of his subsequent appeals in state and federal court were denied.

Dickson was also tried for Marie Surace's murder. A jury convicted him in September 2002 and gave him the death sentence for that killing. The TCCA upheld that conviction and sentence in October 2004.

Dane Dickson acknowledged being in the store when Carmelo Surace was shot, but gave conflicting statements about whether he witnessed Marie's murder. He testified against his brother and pleaded guilty to two capital murder charges, receiving a 15-year sentence. That sentence will be completed in November 2009.

In an interview from death row prior to his execution, Dickson blamed Carmelo Surace for confronting him. "I didn't go in there and pull a gun and start shooting people," he said. "Nobody would have gotten shot. I would have grabbed some beer and ran out. They would have been out about twenty dollars and we'd be at home getting drunk. That's what would have happened." Dickson insisted that Marie Surace was shot by accident as she reached under the counter for a gun.

Rebecca King, the former Potter County district attorney who prosecuted Dickson, said that Marie Surace was on her knees when she was shot, and that she had a telephone in her hand.

No witnesses from either Dickson's family or his victims' family attended the execution. Only TDCJ personnel and news reporters were present. "I do apologize to the Surace family," Dickson said rapidly in his last statement. "I am responsible for them losing their mother, their father, and their grandmother. I never meant for them to be taken. I am sorry for what I did, and I take responsibility for what I did." Dickson also said that he loved his relatives. The lethal injection was then started. He was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m.