Texas To Execute Man Who Set Fire To Grandmother

Matthew Lee Johnson is set to be executed in Texas on Tuesday for the death of an elderly woman he set on fire during a convenience store robbery.

Johnson, 49, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection after 6 p.m. CDT at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.

The Context

Johnson was condemned for the 2012 death of 76-year-old Nancy Harris.

He poured a bottle of lighter fluid over the great-grandmother, who was working as a cashier, before setting her on fire at a store in Garland, a northeast suburb of Dallas, on May 20, 2012. She was able to describe the suspect before she was taken off life support and died five days later.

What To Know

Johnson admitted to setting Harris on fire during his 2013 trial.

"I hurt an innocent woman. I took a human being's life. I was the cause of that. It was not my intentions to—to kill her or to hurt her, but I did," he said.

Johnson said he had not been aware of what he had done because he had been high after smoking $100 worth of crack. His attorneys told jurors he had a long history of drug addiction and had been sexually abused as a child.

David Dow, one of Johnson's attorneys, said he would not be pursuing any final appeals with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to halt the execution. Newsweek has contacted Dow for further comment via email.

Lower appeals courts had previously rejected requests by Johnson's lawyers to stay his execution.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Johnson's request to commute his death sentence to a lesser penalty on Friday.

What People Are Saying

Harris' daughter-in-law Elizabeth Harris told USA Today: "It is just to the point where ... we're just tired and we just want it to be over with and done with.

"The truth of the matter is, there's no such thing as as 'healing.' You don't heal. Days get easier, but there's no day where it's totally healed."

The Texas Attorney General's Office said in a court petition filed last week: "Thirteen years after the commission of Johnson's crime, justice should no longer be denied."

What's Next

Johnson's execution is scheduled to take place 13 years to the day Harris was attacked. If it is carried out, he would be the fourth person put to death this year in Texas.

The next execution scheduled in the U.S. is set to take place on Thursday.

Tennessee plans to execute Oscar Smith, more than two years after Smith's execution was abruptly halted. If it goes ahead, it will be the first death sentence carried out in the state since before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: Newsweek, Khaleda Rahman, AP, May 20, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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