Execution Report: Mark Stroman

Mark Anthony Stroman, 41, was executed by lethal injection on 20 July 2011 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of a convenience store clerk during an attempted robbery.

On 15 September 2001, Stroman, then 31, murdered Waqar Hasan by shooting him in the head as Hasan grilled hamburgers in his Dallas store.

On 21 September, Stroman shot convenience store employee Raisuddin Bhuiyan in the face. Bhuiyan was blinded in the left eye from the shooting, but survived.

On 4 October, Stroman entered a gas station in Mesquite in Dallas County. Holding a .44-caliber pistol, he demanded money from the owner, Vasudev Patel. Patel, 49, began reaching for a gun that he kept under the cash register, but Stroman shot him in the chest, causing him to fall to the floor. Stroman was unable to open the cash register and said to Patel, "open the register, or I'll kill you." Stroman left the store without stealing anything. Patel died from his injury. The crime was recorded on the store's security camera.

A fellow prisoner who testified at Stroman's trial stated that Stroman told him he was angry over the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. He said his country "hadn't done their job, so he was going to do it for us" by killing people who he considered to be of Middle Eastern descent. Stroman told the prisoner his murder of Hasan was his ninth crime of that type. He further said that some automatic weapons police found in his car were intended for a planned attack at a Dallas-area shopping mall.

Patel had moved to Texas from India in 1983 and was a naturalized U.S. citizen. Hasan and Bhuiyan were also from South Asia, not the Middle East.

While awaiting trial, Stroman wrote about his anger over the September 11 attacks and called his murders "patriotic". He stated that he belonged to the Aryan Brotherhood, a white supremacist prison gang, and his chest and arms were covered with tattoos of violent imagery.

Stroman had a lengthy juvenile and adult criminal history. Starting at the age of nine, he stole bicycles and cars, sold and used drugs, and ran away from home. He was arrested for possessing a switchblade at age 15. Four years later, he was arrested for possessing brass knuckles.

As an adult, Stroman burglarized a man's house and stole rifles, jewelry, clothing, and checks. He then wrote hot checks, draining the man's bank account. He also committed theft from another individual and was sentenced to two years in prison for that offense.

In November 1990, Stroman robbed a woman of her purse outside an auto parts store and used her credit cards. He was convicted of robbery and credit card abuse and was sentenced to eight years in prison. He was paroled less than a year later. (At the time, early release was common in Texas due to strict prison population caps imposed by U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice.)

On 14 July 2001, Stroman was arrested for carrying a firearm in an establishment that sold alcohol. He was indicted for unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon as a second offender, but was put on bond and released from jail on 16 July. He was out on bond when he began his killing spree.

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