Texas: Johnny Ray Johnson executed

A career rapist blamed for multiple murders and attacks in Houston and Austin was executed Thursday evening for the slaying of a woman raped, beaten and left to die on a Houston street.

In a lengthy statement Johnny Ray Johnson denounced Texas death row in particular and called for an end to the death penalty in the United States. He called death row the "Polunsky dungeon." The reference is to the Polunsky Unit that houses Texas' condemned men.

"It's life without meaning. It's life without purpose. It is no life at all," Johnson said. He called death row a place of "unforgiveness ... terrifying ... and debilitating."

"The most terrifying thing is the U.S. is the only place, the only civilized country free on this planet that says it will stop murder and enable justice. I ask each of you to lift your voices and demand an end to the death penalty in the United States of America."

Johnson invoked the Lord, Christ and Jesus and closed his statement by expressing love to some friends who were watching him. "See y'all in heaven," he said and then began singing a hymn that was cut short as the lethal drugs began taking effect.

He was pronounced dead at 6:19 p.m., 8 minutes after the drugs began to flow.

A Harris County jury sent Johnson, 51, to death row for the 1995 murder of 41-year-old Leah Joette Smith. According to court documents, her killing was 1 of at least 5 rape-slayings tied to the former truck and taxi driver who also was linked at least 8 other rapes starting in the late 1970s.

"He had so many victims," said Bill Hawkins, the assistant Harris County district attorney who prosecuted Johnson for capital murder. "Several parts of town I can't drive by without thinking of his victims."

Smith and 2 other women were killed during a monthlong spree in 1995, evidence showed.

Johnson's lawyers went to the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, seeking to delay the punishment. The high court rejected the appeal about 30 minutes before Johnson was scheduled to be taken to the death chamber. He lost a similar appeal Wednesday at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

Smith was described in court filings as a cocaine addict who Johnson offered drugs in exchange for sex. After she got high on crack cocaine, however, she refused to have sex with him and they fought. Records show he raped her repeatedly after beating her head against a concrete street curb, then stomped her face.

"Something in my head was just saying, 'Kill, kill, kill,'" he said in his confession.

Records also show he left his wallet behind, returned to retrieve it, raped the dying woman again before picking up his wallet and leaving with Smith's boots. Then he got a beer.

A medical examiner testified at Johnson's trial that Smith died of choking on her own blood after her jawbones had been fractured.

Johnson, in a recent interview at death row, denied any involvement in her death.

"I wasn't there," he told The Associated Press. "I was at work that night. I don't know what happened to her.

"I'm about to get executed. You bet it's frightening."

He also insisted the confession he gave to police was coerced.

"They made me sign it," he said. "I told them I didn't do this."

Johnson had an extensive criminal history before he got to death row. Testimony showed he raped an 8-year-old niece in Houston, who testified against Johnson at the punishment phase of his capital murder trial.

"It was her chance to get even with me," Johnson said, saying that the child's mother had a vendetta against him.

In 1983, he was convicted of sexual assault in Travis County and sentenced to 5 years in prison but was released on mandatory supervision less than 2 years later.

He found work as a cab driver and confessed to raping women he would pick up, including one who fought back and for whose rape he was sentenced to another 5 years in prison. He was released again after 10 months.

Johnson subsequently confessed to numerous other rapes, including one he said he committed on a hill near the Austin police station.

Records show that besides the Smith slaying, Johnson led Houston police to the scenes of 2 other rape-murders and what he said was another killing authorities were unable to confirm because they had no body.

"He thought like he killed another woman," Hawkins recalled. "But we didn't find another victim. She may have been injured severely but I don't think he killed her."

At the time of his arrest, Johnson was working as a heavy equipment operator and would be hired out of daily labor pool sites in Houston. Investigators determined the slaying victims were found near labor pool locations.

Prison records show he was arrested at least 20 times and his convictions also included one for aggravated assault on an undercover police officer.

Johnson becomes the 8th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 431st overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982. Bradley also becomes the 192nd condemned inmate to be put to death since Rick Perry was elected governor in 2001.

Scheduled for execution after Johnson is Willie Pondexter, 34, set to die March 3 for the 1993 shooting death of an 85-year-old woman, Martha Lennox, during a burglary at her home in Clarksville, about 60 miles west of Texarkana.


Sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin, Feb.13, 2009