http://www.newsmax.com/us/texas_execution/2008/06/11/103759.html
Texas Executes 1st Inmate Since Injection Lull
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- A remorseful convicted killer was executed
Wednesday night for raping and killing a Dallas woman 17 years ago,
the first prisoner in nine months to be put to death in the nation's
most active capital punishment state.
Karl Eugene Chamberlain, with a smile on his face, told relatives of
his victim, Felecia Prechtl that he wished he "could die more than
once."
Chamberlain lived upstairs in the same apartment complex as his
victim.
In 1991, he knocked on Prechtl's door and asked to borrow some sugar.
After she filled the request, he returned with a rifle and the roll of
duct tape, attacked the single mother and shot her in the head. Her
son, then 5, found her body.
Chamberlain denied any knowledge of the crime when questioned by
police the day of the slaying. He was arrested five years later after
his fingerprint was matched to a print on the roll of duct tape. When
he was arrested, he confessed.
Chamberlain's execution was the first in Texas since September.
Executions throughout the country were on hold after the Supreme Court
agreed in September to consider a challenge from two Kentucky
prisoners who questioned the constitutionality of lethal injection
procedures. When the court upheld the method in April, the de facto
moratorium was lifted and executions resumed.
There were 26 executions in Texas last year, far more than any other
state.
Before he was executed, Chamberlain stared directly at Prechtl's son,
parents and brother as they stood just a few feet away, looking
through a glass window.
"We are here to honor the life of Felecia Prechtl, a woman I didn't
even know, and celebrate my death," he said. "I am so terribly sorry.
I wish I could die more than once."
"I love you. God have mercy on us all," he said as the drugs began
taking effect. Still grinning, he blurted out: "Please do not hate
anybody because ..." He was unable to finish as he slipped into
unconsciousness.
Ina Prechtl, who lost her daughter, said after watching Chamberlain
die: "One question I ask myself every day, why does it take so long
for justice to be served?"
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