Robbie Byrd
The third person to be executed in Texas so far in March was pronounced dead at the Hunstville Unit’s death chamber Tuesday night.
Charles Anthony Nealy, who was known as “Anthony,” was pronounced dead at 7:20 p.m., seven minutes after the procedure began. He would have been 43 on Friday.
In a lengthy 4 1/2-minute statement before he became unconcious, Nealy was eerily calm and tried to provide comfort to his sister, brother-in-law and other friends on hand to witness the execution.
“Ya’ll know that I love all of you,” Nealy said at around 7:10 p.m. “I’m not crying, so y’all don’t cry for me. I’m going to be with God — Allah — and momma.”
Nealy was convicted in 1998 of gunning down 25-year-old store owner Jiten Bhatka with a shotgun while he slept in his office during a robbery of the Expressway Mart near downtown Dallas one year earlier.
Nealy shot the man and ran with $4,000 in cash.
Nealy’s nephew, Claude Nealy, shot and killed 25-year-old clerk Vijay Patel.
Claude Nealy, who was 17 at the time of the crime, is serving a life sentence for the clerk’s death.
Nealy said that many members of his family, including his mother, passed away while he was incarcerated.
“Since I’ve been here, my dad died, my stepdad died, my mother died, one of my friends commited suicide,” Nealy said in an interview last week with the Associated Press. “And I’m up here where people are dying, it seems, like every week.”
As the first round of drugs — sodium thiopental, a sedative that causes the inmate to lose conciousness — began to take affect, Nealy said that he could “feel it.”
According to the Texas Attorney General’s office, the two Nealys, another of Charles Nealy’s nephews, Memphis Nealy and Reginald Mitchell, were in the car when Charles Nealy told the passengers he was going back to the store to “get” the employees because they would not sell him a certain type of cigar, known as “blackie mounds,” more commonly known as “Black and Milds.”
Later in the night, Mitchell and Claude Nealy returned with Charles Nealy and murdered the employees.
Another employee Satishbhi Bhakta — brother to the murdered store owner Jiten Bhakta — testified that Charles Nealy and Claude Nealy ordered him and another Patel to get down on the floor or they would shoot them.
Bhakta then said he saw Charles Nealy go into the office and then heard a gunshot.
Claude Nealy then shot Patel in the back of the head as he lay on the floor, and died several days later as a result of the injuries.
“I got the man in the office,” Bhakta testified Claude Nealy said. Bhatka testified then that Charles Nealy said “I got the one over here, too.”
Charles Nealy then ordered Satishbhi to open the cash register, then Nealy took the cash from the register and stuffed it in his pocket. Before leaving the store, the two took a six-pack of beer and a bottle of wine.
Mitchell testified that as the three drove away, Charles Nealy said “in a little old happy tone” that “this is the way the Nealy’s do it.”
Mitchell was sentenced to two years for his participation in the robbery.
Charles Nealy had been convicted for three prior aggravated robberies, as well as an extensive juvenile record, including charges of shoplifting, truancy, burglary and theft.
Shotrly after his arrest in the murder case, Nealy assaulted a fellow inmate.
Nealy’s execution, which has scheduled to take place just after 6 p.m., was delayed by a late attempt by his lawyer’s to have his sentence commuted on the claims that Nealy was mentally retarded.
According to a 2002 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, executions of those with mental retardations is considered “cruel and unusual” and therefore unconstitutional.
In late appeals to the federal courts, lawyers for Nealy alleged prosecutor misconduct and false testimony led to Nealy’s conviction and death sentence.
In November, Nealy won a reprieve from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals three days before he was scheduled to die. State courts subsequently rejected the claims as being improper and incorrect.
As well, the execution was delayed because Nealy said technicians had trouble finding a vein in his left arm for the administration of the lethal dose, taking nearly 20 minutes.
“By the way, the reason it took so long was because (they) couldn’t find a vein.” Nealy said. “I used to tear up the doctor’s office. I hate needles.”
Nealy was the ninth person to die this year and the third this month. Two more are scheduled for March.
He asked witnesses to “tell the guys on death row I’m not wearing a diaper” and then launched into a criticism of the Dallas County assistant prosecutor who handled the state’s appeals in his case.
Nealy said he had only one request: “Don’t bury me in that prison graveyard; I want to be buried next to momma,” he said.
“You messed up,” he said. “Now to cover it up, the state is killing me. I’m not sad and bitter. I feel sad for everyone else — you have to stay here. I’m going to someplace better.”
Charles Nealy defended his innocence to the very end, saying in an interview with the Associated Press last week that he was in Oklahoma on the day of the murders picking up a relative’s truck.
“There’s all kinds of weird stuff going on in this care,” Nealy said.
He acknowledged the prospect of execution was scary.
“Since I’ve been here, my dad died, my stepdad died, my mother died, one of my friends commited suicide,” he said. “And I’m up here where people are dying, it seems, like every week.
“Sometimes the Prozac just isn’t enough.”
After the dose of sodium thiopental is completed, a dose of pancuronium bromide is adminsitered, collapsing the lungs and the diaphraghm.
Finally, a dose of potassium chloride is administered that stops the heart.
Scheduled to die next is Vincent Gutierrez, 28, facing lethal injection March 28 for fatally shooting a 39-year-old Air Force Capt. Jose Cobo, who was carjacked outside his San Antonio apartment 10 years ago.
The following day, Roy Lee Pippin, 51, is set to die for the slayings of two men in Houston 13 years ago.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
