A Denton County man was executed Wednesday night for his part in the rape and murder of a 17-year-old high school honors student and the murder of her 16-year-old classmate, only days after he had been released on parole.

James Lee Clark, a 38 year-old white male, was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m., seven minutes after the lethal injection cocktail began to flow.

Clark had been paroled less than a week when he and fellow parolee James Brown were arrested in the murders of Shari Catherine Crews and Jesus Garza. Brown was convicted of robbery and sentenced to 20 years for the June 1993 incident.

When asked to make a final statement, Clark slightly chuckled and said: “Uh, I don’t know... Um, I don’t know what to say. I don’t know.”

Nealy a full minute passed before Clark turned to his side to see his father-in-law, Hugo Knobloch, and spiritual advisor, Irene Wilcox, peering through the glass in the viewing room.

“Oh, I didn’t know anybody was there,” Clark said just before coughing. “Howdy.”

Knobloch replied “howdy,” but it is unclear whether Clark heard him as he began coughing loudly and slipped into unconciousness.

“He didn’t know we were here,” Wilcox said to Knobloch after Clark was pronounced dead. “He didn’t act like he was scared.”

Clark, 38, was the 12th condemned prisoner executed this year in Texas, which has accounted for all but one of all the nation’s executions in 2007.

Attorneys went to the U.S. Supreme Court to try to block the lethal injection, arguing instructions to the jury that convicted him and decided he should die for the killing Crews may have been improper. Clark’s lawyer, James Rasmussen, also questioned the decision by Clark’s trial attorneys not to present evidence at the punishment phase of his trial.

The high court turned down the appeal about two hours before his scheduled execution time.

Capital punishment opponents said Clark, who dropped out after the ninth grade, should be spared from execution because he may be mentally retarded and ineligible for the death penalty under a Supreme Court ruling. But state and federal courts, including the Supreme Court earlier this year, rejected appeals that argued Clark was mentally retarded and instead backed prosecutors’ contentions Clark deliberately performed poorly on IQ tests.

Three years ago, Clark came within four days of execution before he won a reprieve from a federal appeals court so questions about the mental retardation claims could be resolved.

“I was surprised at how clean, sterile, peaceful and humane that process was,” Bruce Isaacks, the former Denton County district attorney who prosecuted Clark, said after watching the execution. “It certainly seemed like the easy way out for somebody that committed two violent, horrific murders.”

Clark already had a stint in the Texas Youth Commission for juvenile problems, an auto theft arrest and convictions for burglary and theft by check when he was sent to prison in 1992 with a 10-year term for burglary.

In an era of crowded Texas prisons, Clark won a parole after serving only 10 months.

“He shouldn’t have been out,” Isaacks said. “The parole board knew that.”

Two weeks later, Clark and Brown were under arrest for the killings of Crews and Garza. The teenagers’ bodies were found in a creek north of Denton, just north of Dallas. Crews had been raped. Both victims were shot in the head with a shotgun.

Evidence showed within days of their parole, Clark and Brown, who were violating parole rules by living together, stole a shotgun and rifle in burglaries. The shotgun was the murder weapon.

Brown somehow also was wounded with a shotgun blast to his knee during the attack. Clark called Denton police from a convenience store to report he and Brown had been robbed and Brown shot while they were fishing.

Skeptical officers questioned the pair and allowed Clark to go home as Brown went to a hospital.

When the two teenagers were found dead the next day, Clark and Brown soon were arrested.

Brown, now serving a 20-year prison sentence for robbery, blamed the fatal shootings on Clark. Clark blamed them on Brown. DNA evidence tied Clark to Crews’ rape and shooting. He was charged but never tried for Garza’s death.

The shotgun and a sawed-off .22-caliber rifle were recovered near the murder scene. The sawed-off stock of the rifle was found in Clark’s trailer home. Evidence also showed the pair bought ammunition for the shotgun.

Scheduled to die next is Ryan Dickson, 30, set for lethal injection April 26 for the slayings of an Amarillo couple during a robbery of their grocery store more than 12 years ago.



The Associated Press contributed to this report.