Charles Brooks, Jr.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Charles Brooks Jr. (April 1, 1942 – December 7, 1982) was a convicted murderer who was the first person executed by lethal injection in the United States. It was the first execution in Texas since 1964.

Charlie Brooks was raised in a well-off Fort Worth family and attended I.M. Terrell High School, where he played football. He had been to prison before, serving time at the United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth for illegal possession of firearms.

On December 14, 1976 Brooks went to a used car lot and asked to test drive a car. The mechanic, David Gregory, accompanied him in the car. After Brooks picked up Woody Loudres, they put the mechanic in the trunk of the car and Brooks and Loudres drove to a motel. There the mechanic was bound to a chair with coat hangers, gagged with tape and then shot once in the head. Neither Brooks nor Loudres would say who fired the shot. Because of legal complications, Lourdes received a 40 year sentence, while Brooks received the death sentence.

The Supreme Court of the United States rejected by 6-3 a petition to grant a stay of execution. The State Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended by 2-1 that the execution should proceed.

After a last meal consisting of a T-bone steak, french fries, catsup, Worcestershire sauce, biscuits, peach cobbler and iced tea, Brooks was rolled into the death chamber at the Huntsville Unit in Huntsville, Texas. There he made his final statement. Brooks had converted to Islam while in prison and as such said a prayer to Allah.

The drugs were injected at 12:09 a.m. and Brooks was pronounced dead at 12:16 a.m. A photo of his body after being transported from the Huntsville Walls (prison) Unit to the Harris County Medical Examiner's building following the execution was published in The Huntsville Item and then in Newsweek the following week in an article mentioning that the first ever judicial execution by lethal injection had occurred. (Photographer's Note: The photo was taken in the basement of the Harris County Medical Examiner's building (morgue). It was not taken at the actual execution itself, and those individuals standing near the body were employees of a local Huntsville funeral home responsible for transporting Brooks from the prison to the morgue. They were not the actual individuals responsible for carrying out the executioner, nor were they TDC employees.)