14 February 2025 :
February 13, 2025 - Texas. Richard Tabler, 46, White, was executed
Texas used a lethal injection of pentobarbital to kill Tabler inside the Walls Unit execution chamber at the Huntsville State Penitentiary in Huntsville. He was pronounced dead at 6:38 p.m., the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said.
“There is not a day that goes by that I don't regret my actions," Tabler said in his last statement, which directly addressed his victims' family members. "I had no right to take your loved ones from you ... I am deeply sorry. […] He then told his loved ones (His mother and sister were among the witnesses to the execution), lawyers and supporters that "This isn't the end; this is only the beginning."
Family members of the victims didn't respond to USA TODAY's request to speak with them, made through the Bell County District Attorney's Office.
In a statement provided to USA TODAY through his wife, Tabler said he was at peace with his death.
The execution came about an hour after Florida executed James Dennis Ford
In a fit of rage on Nov. 27, 2004, Tabler shot and killed Mohamed-Amine Rahmouni, 28, the co-owner of a local strip club with whom he'd been dealing, as well as a friend of Amine's, Haitham Frank Zayed, 25. Two days later, Tabler shot and killed 18-year-old Tiffany Loraine Dotson, a dancer at the club he says he'd been seeing, and another dancer, 16-year-old Amanda Benefield. He never faced trial in the teens' deaths.
Tabler wrote in his 2021 book, "Within the Shadows of Life," that he gunned down the men over Amine's threat to kill Tabler's loved ones for $10. Tabler said he killed the young women after Dotson started asking him questions about the murders.
Tabler became the second inmate executed in Texas this year, the 593rd since Texas resumed executions in 1982, the 5th in the U.S. in 2025, and the No. 1612 since the U.S. resumed executions in 1977.
