The Huntsville Item, Huntsville, TX

Local News

Discussion

May 18, 2006

State puts Herron to death for murders

Last-minute attempts at a stay fall through

Brian Lacy

Despite several last-minute court appeals, Jermaine Herron was executed Wednesday night inside the Huntsville “Walls” Unit for killing a mother and son nine years ago.

Herron, 27, addressed his victims’ husband and father, Jerry Nutt, during his final statement. “I just hope this brings some kind of peace to your family. I wish I could bring them back, but I can’t,” he said. “I hope my death brings peace; don’t hang on to the hate.”

Herron then looked to his mother, telling her to stay strong.

“Lord, forgive me for my sins because here I come,” he said.

Herron stared at the ceiling for several moments before closing his eyes and taking several deep breaths. Three members of the victims’ family braced their hands on each other’s shoulders as they watched. He then released a final, long exhale. Seven minutes later at 7:25 p.m., he was pronounced dead.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a bid for a last-minute appeal claiming the drugs used in lethal injections cause “excessive pain.” The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Herron’s appeal earlier Wednesday afternoon. In a separate opinion, the court lifted the temporary stay of execution it had granted for another Texas inmate on the same issue.

Jerry Nutt, whose wife, Betsy, 41, and son, Cody, 15, were shot an killed by Herron on June 27, 1997, said the slow pace of the legal system is unfair punishment on victims’ families.

“I’ll tell you what the cruel and unusual punishment is, it’s the victims having to wait for justice. That is what’s cruel and unusual,” he said. “Watching him die looked very easy. He went peacefully. I just hope that the terror he felt in the last hour or two of his life was just a little bit of the terror that my son felt before he shot him in the head.”

Herron and a companion, Derrick Frazier, approached Nutt at her family’s mobile home on a ranch about 10 miles outside Refugio, saying they had car trouble and needed to make a phone call. Nutt and her son were fatally shot as they were about to give the two men a ride to town.

The men then used her truck to carry loot taken during a burglary from the house next door. The slain woman’s cell phone and the murder weapon, a 9 mm handgun taken in the burglary, were recovered from the apartment of Herron’s girlfriend.

Herron turned himself in three days after the slayings. He and Frazier gave nearly identical confessions, but later each defendant blamed the other for the killings. Both men received the death penalty.

Herron’s appeal cited the court’s ruling Monday that halted Tuesday’s scheduled execution of Derrick Sean O’Brien, 31, for the 1993 torture slayings of two Houston teenage girls.

Now that the temporary stay has been lifted, the judge in O’Brien’s case can schedule a new execution date.



— The Associated Press contributed to this story

Text Only
Local News