Execution Report: Clydell Coleman

Clydell Coleman, 62, was executed by lethal injection on 5 May 1999 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder and robbery of a woman in her home.

On Friday, 24 February 1989, Coleman, then 52, and Yolanda Phillips, 39, entered the Dallas home of Leethisha Joe, 87, through the back door. Coleman covered Joe's head with a blanket and hit her with a hammer. He then ripped a stocking off of her and strangled her to death with it. The assailants dragged the body to a back room, then stole items including a television, clock radio, sheets, cooler, floor fan, and ladder.

Friends discovered Joe's body after noting her absence at church. A fingerprint left on Joe's jewelry box led to Phillips, who had lived with Coleman for two years. She was arrested, then implicated Coleman in a statement to police.

Phillips also testified against Coleman. She said that she and Coleman entered Joe's home to burglarize it to support their drug habit.

Coleman grew up in a house across the street from the victim. Her son, Arthur Joe, said she knew him well, because he frequently stopped by to eat sandwiches on her front porch.

"She used to feed him when his daddy ran off and left his mother," Joe said. "Who could have known that he would come back and do that years later?"

A witness at Coleman's trial testified that he bragged of robbing Joe of $4,000 less than a year earlier and had planned to rob her again after she had time to rebuild her property. He said he would have to kill her if he robbed her again because he believed she could identify him from the earlier crime.

Arthur Joe said that his mother didn't want to believe that Coleman was the culprit in the first robbery. She reportedly recognized his voice, but could not see his face because a blanket had been thrown over her head.

Coleman had four previous convictions for burglary from 1954, 1957, 1966, and 1974. His first three sentences were for 5 to 6 years each; he served, on average, about half of each one. His 1974 sentence was for 15 years. He was paroled from that one in 1980.

Yolanda Phillips had 15 previous criminal convictions, including 9 for prostitution. She pleaded guilty to burglary and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. She was paroled in 2005 and is due to be discharged from parole upon completion of her sentence in 2019.

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