Texas carries out first US execution of 2026
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Texas death row inmate Charles Victor Thompson was convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend and her partner in 1998.
PHOTO: REUTERS
HOUSTON – A man convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend was put to death by lethal injection in Texas on Jan 28 in the first execution in the US in 2026.
Charles Thompson, 55, was pronounced dead at 6.50pm Central time (8.50am on Jan 29, Singapore time) at a state prison in Huntsville, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said.
Thompson was sentenced to death for the 1998 murders of his ex-girlfriend, Ms Dennise Hayslip, 39, and her boyfriend, Mr Darren Cain, 30.
They were shot at Ms Hayslip’s apartment in a Houston suburb. Mr Cain died at the scene and Ms Hayslip succumbed to her wounds in hospital a week later.
Mr Wade Hayslip, Ms Hayslip’s son from a previous marriage, planned to attend the execution. He was 13 when his mother was killed.
In an interview with USA Today, Mr Hayslip said Thompson’s execution will be “the end of a chapter and the beginning of a new one”.
“I’m looking forward to the new one,” he said.
There were 47 executions in the US in 2025, the most since 2009, when 52 inmates were put to death.
Florida carried out the most executions in 2025 – 19 – followed by Alabama, South Carolina and Texas, where there were five each.
Thirty-nine of 2025’s executions were carried out by lethal injection.
Three were by firing squad and five were by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a face mask, causing the prisoner to suffocate.
The use of nitrogen gas as a method of capital punishment has been denounced by United Nations experts as cruel and inhumane.
The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others – California, Oregon and Pennsylvania – have moratoriums in place.
US President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and has called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes”. AFP
