Texas executes Dallas man for killing ex-girlfriend in 1999
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A Dallas man was executed Tuesday for the 1999 slaying of his ex-girlfriend while he already was on parole for killing his estranged wife.
William Rayford, 64, became the nation’s second inmate put to death this year, both in Texas, when he received lethal injection for beating, stabbing and strangling 44-year-old Carol Lynn Thomas Hall. Her body was found about 300 feet (91 metres) inside a drainage pipe behind her home in South Dallas’ Oak Cliff area. Hall’s 11-year-old son, Benjamin, also was stabbed in the attack but survived. He testified against Rayford.
Asked by the warden at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Huntsville Unit if he had a final statement, Rayford apologized repeatedly to his victim’s four children who watched through a window a few feet from him.
“Carol didn’t deserve what I done,” he said. “Please try to find it in your heart to forgive me. I am sorry. It has bothered me for a long time what I have done.”