Derrick Sonnier

Derrick J. Sonnier, 40, was executed by lethal injection on 23 July 2008 in Huntsville, Texas for the rape and murder of a woman and her son in their home.

On 16 September 1991, Sonnier, then 23, raped Melody Flowers, 27, in her Humble apartment. He then stabbed her, strangled her, beat her with a hammer, and stomped on her. Next, Sonnier stabbed Flowers' 2-year-old son, Patrick, to death. He left both of the victims' bodies floating in the bathtub and placed a blanket over them.

That afternoon, neighbors heard Flowers' 1-year-old daughter, Morgan, crying. After they looked inside an open patio door and saw a pool of blood on a bed, they called the police.

Also that afternoon, a neighbor spotted Sonnier, who lived two apartments down from the victim, walking toward a nearby field with a bloody towel wrapped around one hand . Police officers knocked on his door. He answered the door with the bloody towel wrapped around his hand and - before the officers even asked him any questions - said, "I didn't hurt her. I am just here with my daughter." In Sonnier's apartment, police found a bloody blouse belonging to Flowers, and some bloody towels. In the field near the apartments, police found a plastic shopping bag containing bloody clothing belonging to Sonnier. A DNA test showed that Melody Flowers' blood was on one of Sonnier's socks.

Evidence at Sonnier's trial showed that Sonnier had been stalking Flowers for several months. He had peeped into her bedroom, made suggestive comments to her and her teenage niece, and had slipped into her apartment and hid in her closet at least twice.

A jury convicted Sonnier of capital murder in February 1993 and sentenced him to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence in November 1995. All of his subsequent appeals in state and federal court were denied.

Sonnier declined to make a last statement at his execution. He was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m.