Execution Report: Orien Joiner

Orien Cecil "O.C." Joiner, 50, was executed by lethal injection on 12 July in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of two next-door neighbors.

Carol Lynette Huckabee and Eva Marie DeForest were two waitresses who shared an apartment in Lubbock. In December 1986, an intruder bound both women with duct tape and stabbed them to death. Huckabee, 26, was raped and suffered multiple stab wounds to the chest, back, and face, and her throat was slashed. DeForest, 29, was beaten, stabbed 41 times in the face, and her throat was cut. A broken knife blade was left sticking out of her chest.

Joiner, then 37, called the police and told them that he discovered the bodies then observed two men running from the apartment complex and escaping over a fence. When police checked the muddy ground around the fence, they could find no footprints. Joiner was arrested after telling the police conflicting stories about how he found the murdered women. A witness told police that he saw Joiner near the victim's apartment with blood on his shirt and dripping from his hand. Blood on his shirt and his shoes matched the blood types of both of the slain women. He also had cuts on his right hand and fingers.

Four weeks earlier, Joiner had been hospitalized for emotional problems. Witnesses at his trial testified that he carried a particular knife with him on a daily basis and that he had threatened people with that knife on different occasions. He reportedly threatened to kill or injure his estranged wife, co-workers, and others. Three days before the murders, Joiner unexpectedly showed up at his estranged wife's apartment and physically abused her throughout the night and into the next day. He allowed her to leave after she promised not to have him arrested and to reconcile with him.

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