19 August 2022 :
Kosoul Chanthakoummane, 41, executed
Chanthakoummane received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville and was pronounced dead at 6:33 p.m. He was condemned in 2007 for fatally stabbing 40-year-old Sarah Walker in July 2006.
In a brief statement after he was strapped to the death chamber gurney, Chanthakoummane thanked Jesus Christ, ministers with the Texas prison system and “all these people in my life that aided me in this journey.”
Although no relatives of Walker attended the execution, he offered a message to them: “I pray my death will bring them peace.”
As the 5 grams of pentobarbital began flowing through IV lines into veins in each of his arms, he looked toward a window through which his mother quietly watched a few feet away and mouthed, “Mom, I love you."
He then took 4 breaths, gasped slightly and there was no further movement. He was pronounced dead 15 minutes later.
Just before the execution took place and at Chanthakoummane's request, a Buddhist monk placed his right hand on the inmate's chest and read a passage from the Book of Ecclesiastes that refers to “a time for everything.” He responded: “Amen.”
Walker’s father, Joseph Walker, who died last year, had opposed Chanthakoummane’s execution and had told the Times Union in New York in 2013 he had forgiven his daughter’s killer.
Chanthakoummane becomes the 2nd inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 575th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982. Chanthakoummane becomes the 9th inmate to be put to death this year in the USA, and the 1,549th overall since executions resumed on January 17, 1977.
