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Ex-pizza delivery man set to die
Associated Press ^ | January 13, 2004 | Associated Press Staff`

Posted on 01/13/2004 3:54:20 PM PST by MeekOneGOP


Ex-pizza delivery man set to die

03:03 PM CST on Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Associated Press

HUNTSVILLE, Texas - It was two weeks before Christmas and the holiday lights were glowing outside the rural home of Richard and Helen Ayers when two young men knocked on the door.

Their car stalled and they needed jumper cables, the men told the couple in the house near Prosper, about 30 miles north of Dallas in Collin County.

After Richard Ayers invited the pair inside to keep warm, two more young men barged into the house, armed with guns. Ayers was ordered to turn over his wallet and his wife forced to surrender her purse. They were herded into a bedroom, told to lie face down on a mattress and were shot.

Kenneth Eugene Bruce
AP
Kenneth Eugene Bruce

Helen Ayers, 54, was killed. Her 58-year-old husband was seriously wounded.

One of the four men convicted of the woman's slaying, Kenneth Eugene Bruce, who was 19 at the time of the 1990 attack, faced execution Wednesday night.

Bruce, now 32, would be the second Texas inmate put to death this year.

"It was a very ugly, horrible, senseless crime," says Bryan Clayton, who was an assistant district attorney in Collin County and prosecuted Bruce. "They stole some jewelry and small things like that. Within an hour, they had discarded the items on the side of the road."

The jewelry was inexpensive. The cash stolen amounted to less than $10.

Also Online
Texas Executions: Coverage from TXCN.com
Offender profile: Kenneth Eugene Bruce
Related links
Texas Department of Criminal Justice
Scheduled executions
Offenders on death row

"It didn't make much sense," Clayton said.

Richard Ayers, paralyzed after being shot in the back, remained on the floor for some three hours next to his dead wife until their son arrived home from work and found the carnage.

Two of the four, Eric Lynn Moore and Sam Andrews, turned themselves in to authorities within days. Bruce and his cousin, Anthony Quinn Bruce, then 15, were arrested four days after the attack.

Kenneth Bruce and Moore each received the death penalty. The two others got life terms.

Richard Ayers, confined to a wheelchair, testified against each of them at their trials.

"They were out in a car one night and looking for somebody to rob," Clayton said. "There was some testimony at one of the trials that since the house had pretty Christmas lights, the people there must be rich."

Bruce, working as a pizza delivery driver when the crime occurred, declined to speak to reporters from death row. On a Web site where prisoners seek pen pals, he described himself as a song writer and poet interested in sports, reading and music.

His lawyers were seeking a U.S. Supreme Court review of his case. In other appeals, his attorneys raised questions challenging the instructions given to jurors at his trial.

Defense lawyers also were questioning the constitutionality of the drugs used in lethal injection, contending in their appeals the drugs resulted in cruel and unusual punishment when administered to a prisoner.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, however, refused Tuesday to stop the execution and rejected Bruce's appeal of a lower court's dismissal of the drug suit.

"One thing that makes it hard to figure out what's going on is the issue truly is a procedural issue, not a substantive issue," said David Dow, a University of Houston law professor involved in the Bruce case and two other Texas cases in which the drug question was raised and executions were put off last month.

The 5th Circuit subsequently declined to rule on an appeal refiled in those cases and execution dates for those two inmates were reset.

"None of these guys is challenging the legality of the conviction or sentence," Dow said Tuesday. "They're all saying you can execute me but just can't torture me. The question is how to get a court to address this."

The two inmates who won delays in December would follow Bruce to the Texas death chamber.

Kevin Lee Zimmerman, 42, has a Jan. 21 date for a fatal stabbing during a robbery at a Beaumont hotel in 1987.

Billy Frank Vickers, 58, has a Jan. 28 date for fatally shooting a North Texas grocery store owner during a botched robbery attempt almost 11 years ago.


Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/latestnews/stories/011304dntexexecute.10fe8f33.html


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: execution; murder; pizza; texas
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To: Tacis
I can't imagine letting ANY stranger in my house unless I'm well armed. What on earth does it matter what the color of their skin is? Are you saying it would be okay to let two white guys in your house?
21 posted on 01/13/2004 4:43:28 PM PST by basil
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To: AAABEST
Relationship changed. I got married and MeeknMing wasn't appropriate anymore.

22 posted on 01/13/2004 4:44:31 PM PST by MeekOneGOP (Freeper formerly known as MeeknMing)
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To: AAABEST
MeekOneGOP also decribes me better on this forum. I vote straight ticket GOP ...

23 posted on 01/13/2004 4:47:01 PM PST by MeekOneGOP (Freeper formerly known as MeeknMing)
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To: MeekOneGOP
MeekOneGOP also decribes me better on this forum. I vote straight ticket GOP ...

Hehe. If I were to follow your lead I might change mine to AAABESt_I'm_not_so_sure_anymore.

24 posted on 01/13/2004 4:51:54 PM PST by AAABEST
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To: Elliott Jackalope
Digital man?
25 posted on 01/13/2004 4:52:02 PM PST by satchmodog9 (it's coming and if you don't get off the tracks it will run you down)
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To: AAABEST
hehe ! I think there is a boatload of folks here on FR lately with that feeling. :O)

Hang in there, friend! And thanks.


26 posted on 01/13/2004 4:59:50 PM PST by MeekOneGOP (Freeper formerly known as MeeknMing)
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To: rickmichaels
This POS should get the chair.

And don't wet the sponge.

FMCDH

27 posted on 01/13/2004 5:03:55 PM PST by nothingnew (The pendulum is swinging and the Rats are in the pit!)
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To: ummark
Senseless killers deserve the harshest of sanctions

I agree. So why is Sadam being accorded "prisoner of war" status?

The mention of senseless killers brought that to mind. Probably off point but just had to say it.

28 posted on 01/13/2004 5:08:49 PM PST by mc5cents
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To: basil
Also remember the "+1 rule" If you see one there may be more.

I go to the door armed. If I don't know the people outside I don't answer. Friends and acquaintances rarely "drop by" they call first--its the polite thing to do, but I excuse it for really good friends..:)

Push in roberies are more common than people are told. And I refuse to become a statistic.
29 posted on 01/13/2004 5:10:49 PM PST by BudgieRamone (Unapologetically Male: I eat, sleep, shoot, drink, use power tools, and water my herbs & orchids :))
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To: MeekOneGOP
They are trying to use the same argument here in Ohio, that the drugs used are cruel & unusual punishment.It's just an attempt to void the death penalty via the court system.
I say go back to hanging tried & true if it was good enough for the Nazi Numburg goons it's good enough for any two bit hoods!
30 posted on 01/13/2004 6:47:11 PM PST by bonehead4freedom
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To: Cboldt
Set off some Erie thoughts for me, too. "Wait a second. He's already dead."
31 posted on 01/13/2004 6:52:29 PM PST by Fester Chugabrew
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To: nothingnew
And don't wet the sponge.

If you don't wet the sponge, it won't conduct electricity. I've always been fond of hanging, myself. It make a bold statement to others.
32 posted on 01/13/2004 10:18:39 PM PST by BJClinton (Agh! A few minutes ago I thought of a really cool tagline and now I've forgotten it.)
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To: MeekOneGOP
What I find interesting is that there is a web site for death row prisoners to get pen pal mail. How about posting some worthies and their addresses, so we can send them letters wishing they burn in hell?
33 posted on 01/13/2004 10:23:45 PM PST by hunter112
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To: MeekOneGOP
Thanks for the ping!

Here's a true classic -- Anything To Save A Killer.

34 posted on 01/14/2004 3:23:28 AM PST by Bonaparte
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To: MeekOneGOP
Speaking of pizza-delivery men, what ever happened in the case of the pizza delivery guy who robbed a bank and claimed he had been forced to do this by someone who attached a bomb to his neck? The police didn't believe him until the bomb exploded. This was a few months ago.
35 posted on 01/14/2004 3:31:53 AM PST by wideminded
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To: wideminded
Only thing I can find is that the investigation into the strange death of Brian Wells is still going on. Nothing new since today's journalists only report news off of the wire and TV shows, not investigate the story like they used to. The only news references to this in the last couple of months are in 2003 year in review pieces.
36 posted on 01/14/2004 3:45:24 AM PST by Hillarys Gate Cult (Proud member of the right wing extremist Neanderthals.)
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To: Bonaparte
Thanks for the link. Bumping this so I can come back to it later.
Heading out here shortly for a while today. See ya'll later on ...

37 posted on 01/14/2004 6:45:49 AM PST by MeekOneGOP (Freeper formerly known as MeeknMing)
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To: nothingnew
And don't wet the sponge.

A-HA! Someone else is a fan of Stephen King's "The Green Mile" :~D

38 posted on 01/14/2004 6:59:39 AM PST by cuz_it_aint_their_money (There is some good left in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it's worth fighting for. - Samwise Gamgee.)
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To: Bonaparte
Man ! Lying and the guy got off ? Sheesh !

39 posted on 01/14/2004 12:35:02 PM PST by MeekOneGOP (Freeper formerly known as MeeknMing)
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To: cajun-jack
Almost 20 years ago a convict in Texas named Thomas Barefoot was executed. He got his just deserves. He was one of the first if not the first to be executed by injection. Hehad his final meal and was all hooked up and the warden was ready when the supreme court issued a stay. Out comes the IV and he goes back to his cell. A couple of days later the court says, "oops we screwed up, go ahead and execute him." In goes another IV and this time they do the job.
40 posted on 01/14/2004 1:01:58 PM PST by SLB ("We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us." C. S. Lewis)
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