A Texas man was executed on Tuesday evening for the fatal burning of an elderly clerk, whom he ignited during a convenience store robbery over ten years ago.
Matthew Lee Johnson was sentenced to death for the 2012 murder of 76-year-old Nancy Harris, a great-grandmother who was doused with lighter fluid and set on fire at a store in Garland.
At the age of 49, Johnson received a lethal injection after 6 p.m. at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.
His execution was one of two scheduled for Tuesday in the United States. In Indiana, Benjamin Ritchie was also set to receive a lethal injection for the 2000 murder of a police officer.
These two executions are part of a series of four planned within approximately a week. On May 15, Glen Rogers was executed in Florida, and on Thursday, Oscar Smith is slated to receive a lethal injection in Tennessee.
David Dow, one of Johnson’s attorneys, stated that he would not pursue any final appeals with the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the execution. Lower appellate courts had previously denied requests from Johnson’s legal team to postpone his execution. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Johnson’s plea to reduce his death sentence to a lesser punishment on Friday.
In earlier appeals, Johnson’s lawyers contended that his death sentence was unconstitutional due to an improper determination of his future danger to society, a necessary legal finding for a death sentence. His latest appeals claimed that the scheduling of his execution date was unlawful.
Security footage recorded part of the assault on Harris.
Severely burned, she managed to describe her assailant before succumbing several days after the attack on May 20, 2012. Johnson’s execution is set to occur exactly 13 years after Harris was assaulted.
There has never been any doubt regarding Johnson’s guilt. During his trial in 2013, he confessed to igniting Harris. He expressed regret and referred to himself as “the lowest scum of the earth.”
“I harmed an innocent woman. I took a human life. I was responsible for that. It was never my intention to
Johnson stated that he was unaware of his actions due to being under the influence after consuming $100 worth of crack cocaine. His legal representatives informed the jurors that Johnson has a prolonged history of substance abuse and had experienced sexual abuse during his childhood.
In legal documents, the Texas Attorney General’s Office indicated that Johnson’s numerous appeals have been attempts to postpone a legal death sentence.
“Thirteen years after the perpetration of Johnson’s crime, justice should no longer be postponed,” the Attorney General’s Office asserted in a court petition submitted last week.
Harris had been employed at the convenience store for over a decade, residing merely a block and a half away, as testified by her son, Scot Harris. She was the mother of four sons, grandmother to 11 grandchildren, and great-grandmother to seven.
Prosecutors indicated that Harris had only recently begun her Sunday morning shift when Johnson entered, doused her with lighter fluid, and demanded cash.
After seizing the money from the cash register, Johnson ignited Harris and calmly exited the store, as per court documents. Harris desperately attempted to extinguish the flames engulfing her and fled the store while calling for assistance until a police officer intervened with a fire extinguisher to put out the flames on her body. Johnson was apprehended approximately an hour later.
Harris endured severe second- and third-degree burns affecting her head, face, neck, shoulders, upper arms, and leg, and she experienced significant pain in the days leading up to her death, as testified by a nurse and a doctor.
Should the execution proceed, Johnson would become the fourth individual executed this year in Texas, which is historically the most active state in the United States regarding capital punishment. If both executions scheduled for Tuesday are carried out, the total number of death sentences executed nationwide this year would reach 18.
