Leon Dorsey

Leon David Dorsey IV, 32, was executed by lethal injection on 12 August 2008 in Huntsville, Texas for killing two store employees during a robbery.

On 4 April 1994, Dorsey, then 18, entered a Dallas Blockbuster video store around midnight. Using a 9 millimeter pistol, Dorsey forced two employees, James Armstrong, 26, and Brad Lindsey, 20, to give him the money from the cash register. He then forced them into the back office. When Armstrong had trouble opening the safe, Dorsey shot him in the side. Lindsey was shot in the back when he tried to run away. Dorsey then shot Armstrong again. Both victims died. Dorsey stole $392 from the business. The robbery and first two gunshots were recorded on in-store video cameras, as well as a visit earlier that day when Dorsey came to check out the store.

Dorsey later admitted the crime to his girlfriend, who contacted the police. Investigators questioned Dorsey, but after they reviewed the videotape of the crime, they concluded that he was too tall to be the killer, so he was not charged.

Five months later, Dorsey killed 51-year-old Hyon Suk Chon, a female convenience store clerk, during a robbery in Ennis. He pleaded guilty to murder with a deadly weapon and was sentenced to 60 years in prison.

In 1998, while Dorsey was serving his sentence, the Dallas video store case was reopened by a cold case unit. Police sent the videotape of the crime to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for an analysis of the perpetrator's height. Based on the FBI's height estimate, police questioned Dorsey again, and he confessed.

Before his capital murder trial began, Dorsey was interviewed from death row about the murders. "They're dead," he said, "That's over and done with. I could have came in here and been, 'Oh, I'm sorry, I'm so bad.' But I don't feel like that. That's not being honest with myself." Dorsey also said that the families of his victims should treat the loss of their loved ones like losing money in a craps game, rather than dwelling on it. The interview was used at Dorsey's trial as evidence that he should be sentenced to death.

In the pre-trial interview, Dorsey, who called himself "Pistol Pete", said that when he was ten years old and in kindergarten, he stabbed a pee-wee football teammate and tried to burn down his babysitter's house. At age 14, he took a gun to school and discharged it in a classroom. At 16, he fired a gun at a couple in another car and threatened to kill them. He also had a juvenile record of property theft and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. "I've done cut folks; I've done stabbed folks; I've killed folks," he said, "but it don't bother me."

A jury convicted Dorsey of capital murder in May 2000 and sentenced him to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence in October 2002. All of his subsequent appeals in state and federal court were denied.

Dallas county prosecutor Jason January did not blame the police for deciding not to charge Dorsey after the first murder. He said that the technology at the time was not advanced enough. "You hate to see that," he said, "knowing that potentially if the technology had been as good when the crime was committed, someone else would not have been killed."

In his eight years on death row, Dorsey was written up at least 95 times for disciplinary infractions, including the 2004 stabbing of a corrections officer 14 times in the back with an 8½-inch shank. The officer's body armor protected him from serious injury. Authorities found another shank in Dorsey's cell less two weeks before he was executed.

Dorsey was not available for media interviews while on death row because of his disciplinary record and his threats of violence. Prison officials were prepared to use force to take him to the execution chamber, but Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said that Dorsey did not put up a fight, and force was not used.

At his execution, Dorsey acknowledged his sister, who watched from a viewing room, but did not acknowledge the victims' witnesses. "I love y'all. I forgive y'all. See y'all when you get there," he said in his last statement. "Do what you're going to do." The lethal injection was then started. He was pronounced dead at 6:27 p.m.