Clark was convicted in the Tyler murder of Christina Muse, whose body was found stuffed in a cement-filled barrel months after her death. Death penalty opponents say his conviction rests too heavily on a co-defendant's testimony.
The 1st of 2 scheduled Texas executions this week is set to take place Wednesday evening.
Troy Clark, 51, was convicted in the 1998 Tyler kidnapping and murder of Christina Muse, and he has been accused of 2 other murders and a slew of other crimes, according to court records. The prosecution said Clark beat and drowned Muse before stuffing her body in a barrel with concrete and hiding it on his landlord's property.
Though his attorneys hadn't filed any last-minute legal challenges as of Tuesday, his conviction has been questioned by anti-death penalty advocates since it was largely based on the testimony of his then girlfriend who also faced a murder charge. And for years, his legal fight had focused on a lack of evidence presented at trial that could have swayed the jury to opt for the lesser sentence of life, like his suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome.
At the time of Muse's murder, Clark was living with his girlfriend, Tory Bush. The 3 would do drugs together - court records show Clark used and dealt methamphetamines - but Bush testified at trial that on May 19, 1998, Muse came over and Clark tased her with a stun gun, taped her hands, ankles and mouth and then put her in a closet. Several hours later, her took her to the bathroom, beat her over the head with a wooden board and had Bush help him drown her in the bathtub, according to Bush.
The barrel and Muse's decomposing body were found months later after Bush spoke to police while under arrest on another charge.
In 2000, Bush said at Clark's trial that he was paranoid and thought Muse was talking to the wrong people about his drug dealings. After he tased her, "He told her, he said, 'You should have kept your mouth shut,'" Bush told the jury.
Others testified that they had helped Clark load a blue barrel on his truck the day Muse disappeared. And the state also brought forth witnesses that indicated he had killed 2 other people, including a man whose body was found in a septic tank on the same property as Muse, according to federal court filings.
In an unsuccessful last-ditch petition to the Texas parole board asking for a reduced sentence, Clark's attorney pointed out that Bush's testimony - which played a large role at trial - had changed several times.
Previously, Bush said she thought the man found in the septic tank was to blame for Muse's death, and then she gave a detailed statement saying she killed Muse out of jealousy and that Clark wasn't even home at the time. In that statement, she told police if Clark were implicated in the murder, he "would just cover up for me."
At trial, attorneys briefly questioned Bush on her changing testimony, and she said she had lied earlier because she was afraid of Clark and also loved him, the trial record shows.
"He wanted me to change the whole story," Bush testified. "He wanted me to lay the blame on 2 other people, and those 2 other people are dead."
She acknowledged on cross examination that she had been given a promise of a 30-year recommended sentence for her involvement in the murder if she cooperated with the prosecution. Bush ultimately pleaded guilty to a 20-year sentence and has since been released from prison.
"Clark's death sentence is the product of the largely uncorroborated testimony of an incentivized co-defendant and a trial attorney whose performance was abysmal," wrote David Dow, Clark's current attorney, in his plea to the parole board.
The board voted unanimously against Clark's petition on Monday.
Source: Texas Tribune, Jolie McCullough, September 26, 2018
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde