2009: Danielle Simpson, “If I can’t be free – Kill me!!”

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Last year on this date, Danielle Simpson was executed in Texas for murder.

Simpson, his wife, his brother, and another accomplice kidnapped an octogenarian church organist from her home, trussing her up and throwing her into the Nueces River to drown.

Though it would be another decade before his execution, the brutality of life on death row (and the usual appellate losing streak where the Fifth Circuit reigns) eventually ground him down into volunteering to expedite his execution.

I’m tired of being in an institution that’s unjust, degrading, and corrupted … I’m ready to die!! If I can’t be free – Kill Me!!

Simpson reversed himself shortly before the execution actually went down, but the further appeals on the matter of his “debilitating mental illness” and “diminished intellectual functioning” were equally unavailing.

It may not rise to a legal threshold, but the high school dropout’s thinking was clearly a bit scrambled. Death row has been known to have that effect.

One of Simpson’s attorneys at the Texas Defender Service, David R. Dow, recently wrote a well-received meditation on his life of representing defendants like Simpson who have virtually no prospect of success in the courts. The Autobiography of an Execution, blessedly un-tendentious despite the author’s unabashed death penalty opposition, makes a compelling stocking stuffer for the family member whose tastes run a bit grim.

On this day..

Possibly related executions:

7 thoughts on “2009: Danielle Simpson, “If I can’t be free – Kill me!!””

  3. I just finished watching this episode on the ID channel and had to come goggle this story. I’m so sorry for the victim and her family. I can’t believe someone could even do this to another human being. This was the hardest story I ever watched. Make me think of my Grand Mother who’s 96 and still living at home during the day alone. I’m glad to see that he got what he deserved, and it didn’t take more years than it should have to give him what he deserved. “Rest in Peace Mrs. Davidson” The world misses you.

  4. Nobody ever thinks about the victims as they are only fodder for our corrupt legal profession. I’m surprised he wasn’t freed to ply his trade again and make more money for lawyers.

  5. I hope that nobody has forgotten the victim. Judging from the article, it doesn’t appear that Mr. Simpson has any compassion for her. Too often I feel that over the course of time with some of these cases, the victim is forgotten and the convicted is all but elevated to sainthood. What about the pain and suffering of the victim’s families? Doesn’t that count for anything?
    I can understand why some of the victim’s families are so angry when celebrities etc. don’t advocate on their behalf. I believe in justice for all and I don’t support the death penalty but please, don’t forget the victims and their families. They need compassion, too.

  6. I think his problems began when his parents gave him a girl’s name. Probably became homicidal to be tough, like the Boy Named Sue.

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