They could silence him forever, but it was convicted murderer Carl Henry Blue who had the last word in Texas' first execution of the year. "Cowboy up. I'm fixin' to ride, and Jesus is my vehicle," he said before drifting off Thursday evening, the Associated Press reported. The U.S. Supreme Court denied Blue's final appeal last week.
Blue had been sentenced to death for the sadistic September 1994 murder of his ex-girlfriend Carmen Richards-Sanders at her apartment in Bryan, Texas, roughly 100 miles northwest of Houston. Blue reportedly doused her and another man in gasoline and set them ablaze. While the male victim survived, Richard-Sanders died 19 days later from gruesome burns covering over 40 percent of her body, according to The Christian Post. Blue claimed it was a prank gone horribly wrong, but the surviving victim later testified against him adding to the prosecution's allegations the attack was ignited by a jealous rage.
At the time of the trial, prosecuting attorneys alleged Blue had walked seven miles from his home to a 7-11 convenience store where he got drunk off malt liquor and smoked crack. He then bought 50 cents worth of gasoline, which he emptied into a "Big Gulp." He then waited outside Richards-Sanders apartment, and threw the gasoline on her when she opened the door and lit her on fire, saying: "I told you I was going to get you."
When Blue discovered the other man, Larence Williams, he tossed the remainder of the gasoline on him and threw a match.
"When I went to knock, she snatched the door open and had a cigarette," Blue said to police in a tape-recorded statement played during his trial, according to AP. "I wasted gas on both of them. And she caught on fire, and he caught on fire, and I took off running ... I was scared, man."
While he expressed sorrow for the loss of Richards-Sanders to her family, Blue continued to shirk responsibility as he was put to death by lethal injection.
"I never meant to hurt your mama," Blue said. "If I could change that, I would. ... I hope you can forgive me."
He believed he was "paying the ultimate justice," he said.
"It may be crooked justice but I forgive those people."
"I'm talking to each and every soul in this building, in this room," Blue said before the injection began. "Get your life right. I don't hate nobody; you're doing what you think is your job. God's law is above this law," he added, according to The Eagle of Bryan-College Station.
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