Execution Report: Napoleon Beazley

Napoleon Beazley, 25, was executed by lethal injection on 28 May in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of a man he and two others carjacked.

In April, Beazley, then 17, borrowed his mother's car and drove with two other youths to Tyler, Texas. Beazley's friend, Cedric Coleman, drove, and Cedric's younger brother, Donald, went with them. They saw a Mercedes in a restaurant parking lot. Beazley jumped out of his car, armed with a .45-caliber pistol, and approached the driver of the Mercedes. The man entered the restaurant, apparently without noticing Beazley.

Beazley got back in the car and the group began driving back home. However, according to trial testimony, Beazley told Cedric Coleman to turn back so he could shoot the driver and steal the Mercedes. Coleman pulled the car over and told Beazley he would have to do his own driving, so Beazley took the wheel.

As the group approached Tyler for the second time, Beazley spotted a 1987 Mercedes Benz. Beazley followed the car until it pulled into the garage of a house. He then got out of his car and ran to the driver's side of the Mercedes. He fired one round from his .45, hitting John E. Luttig, 63, in the head. He then ran around to the passenger's side, where Bobbie Luttig was getting out of the vehicle. He fired at her and, though he missed, she fell to the ground. Beazley then returned to Mr. Luttig, saw that he was still alive in the driver's seat, and fired again at his head at close range.

While Beazley was looking for the keys, he asked Donald Coleman, who was carrying Beazley's sawed-off shotgun, whether Mrs. Luttig was dead. When Donald said she was still moving, Beazley shouted for him to shoot her, but he refused. Beazley then began to come around to shoot her, but Donald quickly changed his statement and said that she was dead.

Once Beazley found the keys, he backed the car out of the garage. However, he hit a wall, damaging the vehicle. He abandoned it a short distance away, rejoined the Coleman brothers in his mother's car, and the group returned home.

They were arrested more than 45 days later.

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