The Huntsville Item, Huntsville, TX

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April 27, 2007

Man executed in deaths of Amarillo couple

Stewart Smith





The convicted killer of an elderly Amarillo couple was put to death by lethal injection Thursday evening.

Ryan Heath Dickson’s final statement was quick but fell only on the ears of media members and TDCJ representatives as no witnesses were in attendance.

“I’d like to say I love my mother, brother, sister, grandmother, cousins and nieces and my brothers and sisters I have never met,” Dickson said. “I do apologize to the Surace family.

“I am responsible for them losing their mother, their father and their grandmother. I never meant for them to be taken. I am sorry for what I did and take responsibility for what I did.”

Dickson, 31, was only 18 years old when he and his half-brother — a juvenile at the time — entered the grocery store owned by Carmelo Surace, 61, and his wife, Marie Rosalie Surace, 60.

They were attempting to steal beer when Carmelo Surace confronted them. Dickson pulled a sawed-off .22 caliber rifle out from his coat and shot the store owner in the chest.

Dickson, who was said to be a member of the Varrio Sixteen Locos street gang, then shot Marie Surace in the face even after she placed all the cash in the register — about $52 — on the counter.

Dickson and his half-brother then took the money and an unspecified amount of beer before going off to party with friends.

Prosecutors said Dickson told authorities he hoped the killing would earn him a teardrop tattoo to impress his colleagues in the gang.

However, Dickson blamed Carmelo Surace for confronting him.

“I didn’t go in there and pull a gun and start shooting people,” Dickson said in a recent interview from death row in Livingston.

He contended the store owner must have spotted the weapon hidden in his jacket, tried to wrest it away from him and was shot in the tussle.

“Nobody would have gotten shot,” he said. “I would have grabbed some beer and ran out. They would have been out about $20 and we’d be at home getting drunk. That’s what would have happened.”

He also insisted Marie Surace was shot by accident as she reached under a counter for a gun.

Dickson, who fled the store empty-handed, received death sentences for each slaying. Thursday’s punishment was for Carmelo Surace’s murder.

His brother testified against him and is serving a 15-year prison term.

Former Potter County District Attorney Rebecca King, who prosecuted the two capital murder cases against Dickson, disputed his story of the shootings, especially Marie Surace’s death. The woman was trying to make a phone call, she said.

“He came up after he shot the man,” King said. “She had a phone in her hand.

“She was on her knees. He shot her. Totally cold.”

At least nine other Texas inmates have execution dates in the coming months.

Scheduled next is Jose Moreno, 40, set to die May 10 for the abduction and fatal shooting of a San Antonio man 21 years ago.

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