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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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Ex-pizza delivery man set to die

Man ! That must have been some BAD pizza there !
I can't believe the AP couldn't come up with a better title than that.


1 posted on 01/13/2004 3:54:26 PM PST by MeekOneGOP
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To: MeekOneGOP
The same story is in the Houston Chronicle. But check out the bleeding heart headline they gave it.

Ex-pizza man set to die this week for $10 robbery


2 posted on 01/13/2004 3:56:59 PM PST by Dog Gone
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To: Sparta; luckodeirish; archy; Houmatt; BJClinton; SpookBrat; bonehead4freedom; ...
Honestly, I didn't make that title up myself ...

Ex-pizza delivery man set to die

Kenneth Eugene Bruce

AP
Kenneth Eugene Bruce




Please let me know if you want ON or OFF my Texas Executions ping list!. . .don't be shy.


3 posted on 01/13/2004 3:58:22 PM PST by MeekOneGOP (Freeper formerly known as MeeknMing)
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To: MeekOneGOP
If the drugs don't kill him in 30 minutes or less, does he go free?
4 posted on 01/13/2004 4:00:12 PM PST by Johnny_Cipher ("... now lessee, $60,000 divided one point three million ways equals ...")
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To: Dog Gone
Poor pizza delivery guy. Got $10 and what does that old GOP Texas state do ? Kill him!

BAD GOP !!


5 posted on 01/13/2004 4:01:42 PM PST by MeekOneGOP (Freeper formerly known as MeeknMing)
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To: MeekOneGOP
Marty Fierro's headline:

Ex-pizza delivery man set to FRY

6 posted on 01/13/2004 4:03:45 PM PST by martin_fierro (HEY! I'm tryin' t'run a classy thread here!)
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To: Dog Gone
Ex-pizza man set to die this week for $10 robbery brutally murdering innocent woman

There, that's better.

7 posted on 01/13/2004 4:04:10 PM PST by Klickitat
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To: MeekOneGOP
...contending in their appeals the drugs resulted in cruel and unusual punishment when administered to a prisoner.

Awww. I can hear the melodious harmony of the violins. What a crock of shite. This POS should get the chair.

8 posted on 01/13/2004 4:04:19 PM PST by rickmichaels
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To: MeekOneGOP
Just curious, why did you change your screenname?
9 posted on 01/13/2004 4:04:52 PM PST by AAABEST
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Ex-pizza delivery man set to die

...and at 14 years in coming, this execution is ONE HELL of a late delivery!

10 posted on 01/13/2004 4:05:38 PM PST by martin_fierro (HEY! I'm tryin' t'run a classy thread here!)
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To: Dog Gone
Ex-pizza man set to die this week for $10 robbery

Unbeleivable! What about "Psycho Set to Die for Murder, Attempted Murder, Forced Entry, and Robbery"
11 posted on 01/13/2004 4:07:56 PM PST by erasmus605
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To: MeekOneGOP
I expected this to be news about that pizza delivery man from Erie, PA. The one with the bomb collar. That story sure disappeared in a hurry.
12 posted on 01/13/2004 4:09:47 PM PST by Cboldt
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To: erasmus605
Yes, it's unbelievable, but it's true.
13 posted on 01/13/2004 4:11:54 PM PST by Dog Gone
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To: rickmichaels
lethal injection isn't cruel and unusual ...sentencing them to death by firing squad and giving every shooter blanks...and have them "shoot" him 2 or 3 times before actually putting live rounds in would be cruel and unusual..

It would also be phunny as hell to watch them pee their pants that many times!




14 posted on 01/13/2004 4:18:10 PM PST by cajun-jack
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To: MeekOneGOP
Please advise if he makes the obligatory apology to the family of his victim. I always find that such a human touch.
15 posted on 01/13/2004 4:18:24 PM PST by RushLake
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To: MeekOneGOP
Nobody played the race card on this killer's appeals? I thought they would automatically claim that the white woman he murdered had offended him with racial comments and that was why he killed her and that is why, as the vitim of a hate crime, he should be let off.

I simply can't imagine letting two black guys into your house, no matter how cold, without being very well armed when you did.

Bye, Bye Bruce. But, only two for Texas and the month is half over. We got to pick up the pace!!

16 posted on 01/13/2004 4:20:58 PM PST by Tacis
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To: MeekOneGOP
Nice picture of the perp. Strange there is no picture of the victims.
17 posted on 01/13/2004 4:30:11 PM PST by TheDon (Have a Happy New Year!)
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To: MeekOneGOP
There are good men and there are bad men. These men are among the worst. Senseless killers deserve the harshest of sanctions.
18 posted on 01/13/2004 4:31:49 PM PST by ummark
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To: MeekOneGOP
He drives down the road just as fast as he can,
the serial killer, pizza man.
He's got pepperoni, and a nasty plan,
the serial killer, pizza man.

Parks in your driveway, comes up to your door,
he's bringing you your pizza and a whole lot more.
Remembers you from the time before,
you were the one who didn't tip him!
19 posted on 01/13/2004 4:34:01 PM PST by Elliott Jackalope (We send our kids to Iraq to fight for them, and they send our jobs to India. Now THAT'S gratitude!)
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To: Elliott Jackalope
His last meal: pizza!
20 posted on 01/13/2004 4:38:18 PM PST by Nick Thimmesch
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