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1989: Stephen McCoy, botched

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Rapist-murderer Stephen McCoy succumbed to a badly botched lethal injection in Texas on this date in 1989.

McCoy, according to the Death Penalty Information Center,

had such a violent physical reaction to the drugs (heaving chest, gasping, choking, back arching off the gurney, etc.) that one of the witnesses (male) fainted, crashing into and knocking over another witness. Houston attorney Karen Zellars, who represented McCoy and witnessed the execution, thought the fainting would catalyze a chain reaction. The Texas Attorney General admitted the inmate “seemed to have had a somewhat stronger reaction,” adding, “The drugs might have been administered in a heavier dose or more rapidly.”

McCoy with two accomplices, James Paster and Gary LeBlanc, had committed a cut-rate murder for hire, grossing $1,000 to shoot someone’s ex-husband in the parking lot of a club. Paster, who actually pulled the trigger on that murder, suggested to his mates that they would all rest a little easier in one another’s silence if they jointly committed two more homicides, with each taking his own turn as the murderer.

To that end, they kidnapped one Diana Oliver in November 1980, gang-raped her, and had McCoy take her life with an improvised garrote. Their third victim was 18-year-old Cynthia Johnson, abducted from her stranded vehicle on New Year’s Eve 1980, and also raped and strangled to death.

Paster was also executed. LeBlanc copped a long prison sentence for cooperating with the state against his accomplices.

On this day..