1998: Jonathan Wayne Nobles

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On this date in 1998, Jonathan Nobles was executed in Texas for a double murder — choked off by the lethal drugs as he sang the words “…sweetmother and child” in the Christmas hymn “Silent Night”.

On parole for theft, the drug-addled former electrician Nobles broke into an Austin home on September 13, 1986 wielding a 5.5-inch knife and turned it into a scene of carnage.

Nobles knifed to death two young women, 21-year-old Mitzi Nalley and 24-year-old Kelly Farquhar; when Mitzi’s boyfriend, Ron Ross, attempted to come to their aid, Nobles stabbed him 19 times. Ross survived but lost an eye in the attack.

Nobles confessed and was convicted with ease. This is very obviously not a happy story (few are, on this here site) because two innocent humans were destroyed in the bloom of youth, and a third paid for the crime with his own life. But the journey of redemption and forgiveness undertaken thereafter by both Nobles and at least some of those whose lives he devastated cannot help but inspire.*

The Nobles of death row — the man who was finally executed, 12 years after the crime — was at the last a hard man to hate. He converted on death row to Catholicism, eventually becoming a lay preacher. Murder, of course, is such a great crime because in the end the loss is eternal and can never really be repaired or compensated. Nevertheless, it was clear to all those who knew him that Nobles’s remorse, his change, was deep and genuine.

“I don’t think I’m the monster who perpetrated these terrible acts,” Nobles said not long before his execution. “Nothing I can do for a thousand years can relieve me of my responsibility.”

Mitzi Nalley’s mother, Paula Kurland, made an even more dramatic journey from the other side of that horrible night in Austin. Kurland decided that she needed to forgive her daughter’s killer in order to release the bitterness of his crime.

“You forgive because it frees you,” she said. “Hopefully, one day, it will free the offender, but that’s not the reason you do it. You do it because it frees you.”

Kurland eventually met Nobles face to face — “the hardest thing I ever did, second only to burying my child.”

I went against my whole family, but I knew that if I didn’t tell Jonathan I had forgiven him, I would be a prisoner for the rest of my life. And I couldn’t live with that. …

I never wanted to ask him why. That was never important to me. What was important was that I have the opportunity to give him back the responsibility for the devastation and pain and destruction that he brought into a lot of people’s lives.

The singer-songwriter (and longtime anti-death penalty activist) Steve Earle, who befriended Nobles, was one of the witnesses to his execution.** Earle quoted his friend’s last statement, addressing most of those present by name, thus:

I know some of you won’t believe me, but I am truly sorry for what I have done. I wish that I could undo what happened back then and bring back your loved ones, but I can’t. [to Paula Kurland] I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I wish I could bring her back to you. [to Ron Ross] And Ron … I took so much from you. I’m sorry. I know you probably don’t want my love, but you have it.

[to Steve Earle] Steve, I can’t believe that I had to go through all this to see you in a suit coat. Hey man, don’t worry about the phone number, bro. You’ve done so much. I love you. [to his own aunt] Dona, thank you for being here. I know it was hard for you. I love you. [to a British pen pal] Pam, thank you for coming from so far away. Thanks for all you have done. I love you. Bishop Carmody, thank you so much. Reverend Lopez and you, Father Walsh, I love you all. I have something I want to say. It comes from I Corinthians. …

The verse he then recited from memory, the “love is …” passage of 1 Corinthians 13, is all that’s reported on Texas’s “last statements” website.

Earle’s song “Over Yonder (Jonathan’s Song)” is inspired by Jonathan Nobles.

* These attempts by both offender and victim to alleviate the spiritual injury inflicted by the crime exemplify restorative justice, an approach to crime and justice that emphasizes healing over punishment.

** “I don’t think I’ll ever recover from [seeing Nobles executed]. I have absolute waking nightmares about it.” –Earle

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7 thoughts on “1998: Jonathan Wayne Nobles”

  1. You bleeding heart idiot. I knew Kelley and Mitzi. How dare you take the side of the man that brutally killed them. You make me sick. Forgiveness is a different story. If the families of the victims want to forgive this man for murdering their children-well, that is a choice they make in their own heart-so they can heal. Who the hell are you to write a song for this man? God help you-please go find a cause that is worthy or your time.

    • Um, the Headsman didn’t write the song, he just showed the video of it being performed. And he’s not taking anyone’s side here. You are overreacting.

    • You are exactly right. Not sure what the point id about the ” headsman “. was it erased? I knew Kelly in fact was almost with her the fateful night. I think she was dancing at Dallas nightclub. For years I struggled with this. For years I wanted to try and reach out. Fuck Steve Earle!!

  2. this is silly, i know, but you, or he, or you+he together, have a couple of things mixed up. these are:

    1/ the resolutely & venerable classic Xmas song silent night; &

    2/ the somewhat newer [if aging daily, not to mention exponentially] semi-demi-hemi-classic sweet child o’mine given unto our benighted earthly realm by axl rose, et al.

    not the same at all, not hardly. unless you have a german->english translation which has, as of now, escaped me, our reticent infant may be mild like milksop, & tender as if he were hit many times w/ a meat mallet, but, as far as i know, he [or, rather: He] was never sweet.

    hope it helps!

  3. “Kurland eventually met Nobles face to face”

    I think it was filmed? I think I remember seeing this (if it’s what I remember, Kurland, at least at the time, was emphatically NOT an opponent of the death penalty. She still wanted the man she’d forgiven—am fighting putting that in quotation marks—to die).

    Of course, I could be wrong (in my memory).

      • How would you like someone analyzing your reaction to the death of your child? Please people-he was high and butchered two young girls. If God chooses to forgive him-well that is God’s choice. No one else is really required to forgive him for this horrific nightmarish act.

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