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#Post#: 383--------------------------------------------------
~ Billy Crutsinger, 04Sep19, (TX) ~
DIR By: BuzzC
Date: August 23, 2019, 12:13 am
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Death Row Information
[IMG]
HTML http://www.tdcj.texas.gov/death_row/dr_info/crutsingerbilly2.jpg[/img]
Name Crutsinger, Billy Jack
TDCJ Number 999459
Date of Birth 10/05/1954
Date Received 10/08/2003
Age (when Received) 49
Education Level (Highest Grade Completed) 11
Date of Offense 04/06/2003
Age (at the time of Offense) 48
County Tarrant
Race White
Gender Male
Hair Color Gray
Height (in Feet and Inches) 5′ 9″
Weight (in Pounds) 217
Eye Color Green
Native County Tarrant
Native State Texas
Prior Occupation
Laborer
Prior Prison Record
#1014350 - On a one-year sentence from Cochran County for
Reckless Injury to Elderly with Bodily Injury
Summary of Incident
On April 6, 2003, in Fort Worth, Texas, Crutsinger entered the
residence of a 71-year-old white female and an 88-year-old white
female and stabbed both victims multiple times, resulting in
their deaths.
Co-Defendants
None
Race and Gender of Victim
White female; White female
#Post#: 386--------------------------------------------------
Re: ~ Billy Crutsinger, 04Sep19, (TX) ~
DIR By: BuzzC
Date: September 5, 2019, 6:14 am
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Texas inmate executed for killing mother, 89, daughter, 71, in
2003--
Wednesday, September 4, 2019
A Texas death row inmate was executed Wednesday for the fatal
stabbing of an 89-year-old woman and her 71-year-old daughter
after barging into their Fort Worth home under the pretense of
doing some work for them over 16 years ago.
Billy Jack Crutsinger, 64, received a lethal injection Wednesday
evening at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the 2003
killings of Pearl Magouirk and her daughter, Patricia Syren. In
a final statement that lasted four minutes, Crutsinger thanked
three friends who witnessed the execution.
“I’m at peace now and ready to go and be with Jesus and my
family,” Crutsinger said.
Then, as the lethal dose of pentobarbital began, he said he
could feel it “in my left arm. It’s kind of burning.”
Crutsinger then began coughing and breathing heavily and then
made snoring noises at least 29 times before he stopped moving.
At 6:40 p.m. CT — 13 minutes after the lethal dose started —
Crutsinger was pronounced dead.
Investigators said Crutsinger killed the two women and stole
Syren’s car and credit card. Police arrested Crutsinger three
days later at a bar in Galveston, over 300 miles away.
Michele Hartmann, one of the prosecutors with the Tarrant County
Criminal District Attorney’s Office who convicted Crutsinger,
told jurors Crutsinger’s actions had nothing to do with alcohol
but were the result of “evil.”
Friends and family described Magouirk, known as “R.D.,” as an
avid gardener. Syren volunteered as a receptionist at her
church. Both women were retired and lived together.
Crutsinger had been “spiraling downward much of his adult life,”
including three failed marriages and a propensity for violence
when he drank, according to a report by a forensic psychologist
hired by his trial attorneys.
In the months before the murders, Crutsinger became homeless and
increasingly desperate after his wife kicked him out of their
home and his mother, who had enabled his behavior, stopped
helping him, according to the report.
When Crutsinger realized Magouirk and Syren didn’t have enough
work to give him much financial relief, he flew into an
alcoholic rage, the report said.
“All of his anger at being left to fend for himself and of
having his safety net taken from him was then brought to bear on
the victims,” according to the report.
Crutsinger was the 14th inmate put to death this year in the
U.S. and the fifth in Texas, the nation’s busiest capital
punishment state. Ten more executions have been scheduled in
Texas for this year.
No family members of Magouirk and Syren witnessed the execution.
Crutsinger did not mention the two women during his final
statement.
“The defendant stabbed two elderly women to death in their own
home. They had offered him a chance at honest work. The loss of
mother and daughter Pearl Magouirk and Pat Syren is still felt
deeply by their family and the Fort Worth community. Our
sympathy and thoughts continue to be with them,” Hartmann said
in a statement.
The U.S. Supreme Court had declined a request by Crutsinger’s
attorney to stop the execution. The lawyer had argued
Crutsinger’s previous attorney had a long history of incompetent
work in death penalty cases.
“The jury heard nothing from the defense that provided an
explanation about the disease of alcoholism in relation to the
offense conduct,” including such things as “a history of
domestic violence and abuse, and repeated losses of significant
friends and relatives,” Lydia Brandt, Crutsinger’s current
attorney, wrote in her one of her Supreme Court petitions.
Brandt also argued lower courts had wrongly denied Crutsinger
funding to investigate competency and mental health claims that
were not sufficiently reviewed by prior attorneys.
Lower appeals courts and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles
also had declined to stop the execution.
Investigators said DNA evidence tied Crutsinger to the killings
and he confessed.
Brandt described Crutsinger’s previous appellate lawyer, Richard
Alley, as a “great word processor” who cut and pasted
“worthless” legal arguments from other cases and who was removed
from another death row client’s case and suspended from
practicing in federal court.
Brandt alleged that Alley performed similar shoddy work in at
least six other death penalty cases. Four of those inmates have
been executed. An attorney for former death row inmate Bobby
Woods also alleged incompetent work by Alley before Woods was
executed in 2009.
In 2006, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals removed Alley from
its list of lawyers eligible to represent death row inmates in
their appeals. Alley died in 2017.
“I do the best I possibly can on all these cases,” Alley told
the Austin American-Statesman in a 2006 story that was part of a
series that looked at the bad work by court-appointed attorneys
in appeals of death penalty cases.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office called Crutsinger’s
allegations against Alley “speculative” because he had not
identified any claim that Alley should have raised but did not.
The attorney general’s office also said Crutsinger’s case has
received an “extensive review” during his appeals process.
8)
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