Execution Report: Yokamon Hearn

Yokamon Laneal Hearn, 33, was executed by lethal injection on 18 July 2012 in Huntsville, Texas for the kidnapping, murder, and robbery of a 26-year-old man.

In the evening of 26 March 1998, Hearn, then 19, and Delvin Diles, also 19, approached Frank Meziere, 23, at a coin-operated car wash in North Dallas. They forced Meziere at gunpoint into his own car, then drove to a deserted area. Two other companions, Dwight Burley, 20, and Teresa Shirley, 19, followed in a second car. Hearn and Diles then shot Meziere several times in the head and upper body. The assailants then took the victim's wallet and personal items and fled in his vehicle. Meziere's body was discovered the next morning. He had twelve bullet wounds from 9 mm and .22-caliber weapons. His car was also discovered later that morning, abandoned in a shopping center parking lot.

Hearn and his companions were caught on videotape by a security camera at a convenience store adjacent to the car wash. Hearn and Diles were arrested several days later. Burley and Shirley were arrested eight months later.

At Hearn's trial, Teresa Shirley testified that she was the driver of the second car. She said that Meziere had his arms raised and appeared to be begging for his life as Hearn swung a Tec-9 semiautomatic rifle back and forth. The rifle, Shirley testified, had been stolen in an apartment burglary the previous day. Hearn fired at Meziere and kept shooting him even after he fell to the ground. Diles also shot at the victim several times with his revolver, she testified.

Shirley further testified that Hearn later bragged about the killing. She said he waved around a newspaper account stating that Meziere had been shot in the head - or "domed" in street slang, and he told her, "I told you I domed him. I told you. I told you."

At age 19, Hearn had no prior felony convictions. Testimony at his punishment hearing indicated that he had an unadjudicated history of burglary, robbery, sexual assault, and other offenses.

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