Double execution: Richard Lee Tabler put to death in Texas 1 hour after Florida execution – USA TODAY
Source: USA Today
Texas executed Death Row inmate Richard Lee Tabler on Thursday, 20 years after he fatally shot four people in what he described as a fit of rage.
Texas used a lethal injection of pentobarbital to kill the 46-year-old Tabler, whose mother and sister were among the witnesses to the execution. 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.”
The execution came about an hour after Florida executed James Dennis Ford by lethal injection for killing a young couple in front of their toddler daughter in 1997.
It’s not the nation’s first same-day executions. It happened twice last year alone in the U.S., which executed more of its citizens than all but three other countries in 2023: Iran, Saudi Arabia and Somalia, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Here’s what to know about Tabler’s execution, including more of his last words. Click here to read more about Ford’s execution.
‘I hope he burns in hell’:James Dennis Ford executed in Florida for couple’s murder
Tabler’s lengthy statement continued to address the families of his victims.
“If you feel that this is what you need to get you closure, I pray it helps you have that closure,” he said. “I just hope that one day you find that forgiveness to forgive me for taking your loved ones from you.”
He thanked several prison staff members by name for “your love and support and your compassion and allowing me the opportunity to show you that I can change and become a better man and rehabilitate.”
He told his loved ones, lawyers and supporters that “This isn’t the end; this is only the beginning.”
“I thank God for allowing me to seek him out and finding him and show that this isn’t about me,” he said. “We are all here today because of my actions, but in the end, it comes down to God, praising him and giving honor to him … I know when this happens, and this goes through it’s going to be the end of this life, but it will be the beginning of my ultimate life in heaven.”
At 25, Tabler had been stealing cars, running drugs and doing them, and had done some hard prison time. The California native would try to get his life straight but it would never stick.
After bouncing around the country between Florida, California, Oregon, Michigan and parts in between, Tabler ended up in Killeen, Texas, where his mother and older sister were living.
In a fit of rage on Nov. 27, 2004, Tabler shot and killed Mohamed-Amine Rahmouni, 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. 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.
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.
“The murder of the men was as cold-blooded as it could be,” Paul McWilliams, who prosecuted Tabler nearly two decades ago, told USA TODAY on Wednesday. “The killing of the girls was just senseless. There was absolutely no reason for that.”
Tabler, who is now 46, was convicted of killing the men and sentenced to death, so prosecutors didn’t need to pursue the conviction for the young women’s murders, McWilliams said.
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.
During his 20 years behind bars, Tabler said he found God and led a ministry of Death Row inmates. He drew serene landscapes and wrote several books, which include advice for young people about how not to end up like him.
Tabler’s mother, sister and wife − who all spoke exclusively with USA TODAY − say that he turned into a loving and selfless man who didn’t deserve to die. The women spoke on the condition that their names not be used because they have previously faced harassment as loved ones of a Death Row inmate.
“The Richard that I know is not the man that they portray to be a monster,” his wife, who met Tabler through an prison letter-writing program, told USA TODAY about a week before the execution. “I’ve never met anybody, even out here in the free world, that has a heart bigger than his.”
In a statement provided to USA TODAY through his wife, Tabler said he was at peace with his death.
“A lot of people cannot understand how I can have such peace and joy in my heart in the face of my own death, but I know it’s the strength, grace and mercy of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who has been with me every step of the way,” he said. “The day of my execution is the beginning of my real life.”
Tabler became the fifth
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