AUSTIN (Texas Tribune) — Charles Thompson, who once briefly escaped custody after being sentenced to death, is scheduled to be executed Wednesday evening for the 1998 double murder of his former girlfriend and her friend.
Thompson had gotten into an altercation at his then-girlfriend Dennise Hayslip’s apartment in Houston with her and her friend, Darren Cain, before a police officer escorted Thompson off the property, according to court records. Early the next morning, Thompson returned to the apartment, killing Cain and shooting Hayslip in the mouth. Hayslip was life-flighted to a nearby hospital, where she died a week later.
Thompson was charged with capital murder for killing Cain and Hayslip and sentenced to death in 1999. In 2001, his death sentence was vacated by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals after judges ruled the Harris County District Attorney’s Office had unconstitutionally used an undercover investigator to obtain evidence for the trial. Thompson was given a new sentencing hearing, where a jury again sentenced him to death in 2005.
Did you know Texas keeps a list of executed inmates’ last words?
While Thompson does not dispute shooting Cain, he has said the man attacked him first and he acted defensively. Thompson has also asserted that Hayslip would have survived her wounds, which partially severed her tongue, had it not been for her receiving an improper intubation while at the hospital…