Texas Executes Lester Bower Jr. After 30 Years [Video]
Texas has executed Lester Bower Jr., aged 67, for the 1983 murders of four men. Bower was the state’s oldest inmate on death row.
He was executed Wednesday, June 3, for fatally shooting four men at an airplane hangar on a ranch near Sherman, Texas, which is 60 miles north of Dallas, according to MSN.com. Prosecutors claimed Lester Bower, Jr. was attempting to buy the plane from the men, and shot them after stealing the plane. Bowers’s age on the date of his execution made him the oldest of the 526 inmates executed since Texas resumed capital punishment in 1982.
On the day of his death, the convicted man was strapped to a gurney and given a lethal dose of pentobarbital. As his last words, Bower said, “Much has been said about this case. Much has been written about this case. Not all if it has been the truth. But the time for discerning truth is over and it’s time to move on.”
According to sources, he snored quietly about six times and then stopped moving. Lester Bower, Jr. was pronounced dead at 6:36 p.m., 18 minutes later.
Bower did try to make a last-minute appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, since, according to his lawyers, trial jurors weren’t able to consider that Bower had no previous criminal record. Attorneys also argued that the U.S. Supreme Court had used incorrect legal standards at Lester’s last appeal. Despite being denied his appeal, Lester claimed he wasn’t mad at the prosecutors.
“This is not a typical death penalty case,” said Bower’s lead lawyer, Peter Buscemi, who also indicated the court needs “sufficient time” to evaluate Lester Bowen, Jr.’s appeal.
However, Lester Bower, Jr. was denied the last-ditch appeal since the court determined 30 years of litigation should be sufficient, and it was time for justice for “for the four families of the men that Bower slaughtered in cold blood,” according to Stephen Hoffman, an assistant Texas attorney general.
Among those murdered were Bob Tate, a building contractor; Philip Good, a Grayson County Sheriff’s Deputy; Jerry Brown, a Sherman interior designer; and Ronald Mayes, a former Sherman police officer, reports the New York Daily News. Bower initially lied about being at the hanger, but after parts of the plane were found at his home, he admitted to meeting the men there, but claimed they were alive when he left.
“Deep in my heart, I know justice has been served,” Marlene Bushard, who is Good’s wife, reportedly said, after watching Lester Bower, Jr. die. “He is the right person that was convicted. It’s just good to close this section of our lives and move on. I didn’t need an apology. I just needed it to be done. It’s been a long time.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igqCd9QAIs8
[Image from YouTube]
