HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A Texas man who once escaped custody and spent three days on the run after being sentenced to death for fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend was put to death Wednesday, becoming the first person executed in the United States this year.
Charles Victor Thompson, 55, was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m. CST following a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was condemned for the April 1998 shooting deaths of his ex-girlfriend, Glenda Dennise Hayslip, 39, and her new boyfriend, Darren Keith Cain, 30, at the woman’s suburban Houston apartment.
In his final words, Thompson asked the families of his victims find it in their hearts to forgive him, adding “that you can begin to heal and move past this.”…