Charles Victor Thompson

Last updated

Charles Victor Thompson
Born (1970-06-13) 13 June 1970 (age 53)
Criminal chargeCapital murder
PenaltyDeath
Details
VictimsDennise Hayslip
Darren Cain

Charles Victor Thompson (born 13 June 1970) is an inmate sentenced to death in April 1999 and currently resides on Texas Death Row. He was sentenced to death for the murder of his girlfriend Dennise Hayslip, and her other boyfriend, Darren Cain, on 30 April 1998. Thompson made headlines in 2005 by escaping from Harris County Jail in Houston, Texas, after a re-sentencing hearing where he was sentenced to death for a second time, using a forged ID badge, claiming to be with the Attorney General's office. [1] He was captured four days later outside a liquor store in Shreveport, Louisiana where he was using a pay phone while intoxicated. He was able to get food and clothing, he told investigators, posing as a Hurricane Katrina evacuee. He also got money from Good Samaritans in Shreveport.

Thompson is appealing his death penalty conviction as he states that there was insufficient evidence to support his capital murder conviction because intervening medical care was the direct cause of Dennise Hayslip’s death, not the actual shooting. [2] [3]

In 2008, a biography by Roger Rodriguez was released titled The Grass Beneath His Feet: The Charles Victor Thompson Story. [4] In it, Rodriguez highlights the details regarding his escape, but he does not reveal how Thompson received a handcuff key.

Thompson resides in solitary confinement [5] on Death Row in Livingston, Texas at the Polunsky Unit. [6] He writes on inmate blog Between the Bars . [7]

Thompson is featured in the fifth episode of the first season of the Netflix series I Am a Killer .

Thompson was also featured in an episode of "Extreme Prison Breaks", entitled "Runaway Chuck", which first aired on the Documentary Channel on 15 August 2012.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Texas Seven</span> Group of American escaped convicts

The Texas 7 were a group of prisoners who escaped from the John B. Connally Unit near Kenedy, Texas, on December 13, 2000. Six of the seven were apprehended over a month later, between January 22–24, 2001, as a direct result of the television show America's Most Wanted. The seventh committed suicide before he could be arrested. The surviving members were all convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Irving, Texas, police officer Aubrey Wright Hawkins, who was shot and killed when responding to a robbery perpetrated by the Texas Seven. Four of the six sentenced have since been executed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Quentin Rehabilitation Center</span> Mens prison in California, US

San Quentin Rehabilitation Center (SQ), formerly known as San Quentin State Prison, is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in Marin County.

The John B. Connally Unit is a maximum-security prison for males located in unincorporated Karnes County, Texas, United States. It is located on Farm to Market Road 632, just east of U.S. Highway 181 2 miles (3.2 km) south of the city of Kenedy, and southeast of San Antonio. The prison, with about 813 acres (329 ha) of space, is operated by the Correctional Institutions Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, administered as within Region IV. The unit is named for former Governor and United States Treasury Secretary John B. Connally, Jr.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wilbert Rideau</span> American convicted killer and author

Wilbert Rideau is an American convicted killer and former death row inmate from Lake Charles, Louisiana, who became an author and award-winning journalist while held for 44 years at Angola Prison. Rideau was convicted in 1961 of first-degree murder of Julia Ferguson in the course of a bank robbery that year, and sentenced to death. He was held in solitary confinement on death row, pending execution. After the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that states had to rework their death penalty statutes because of constitutional concerns, the Louisiana Court judicially amended his sentence in 1972 to life in prison.

Shaka Sankofa was a Texas death-row inmate who was sentenced to death at the age of 17 for the murder of 53-year-old Bobby Grant Lambert in Houston, Texas, on May 13, 1981. He was executed by lethal injection on June 22, 2000, in Huntsville, Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federal Kidnapping Act</span> United States federal criminal law prohibitting kidnapping

Following the historic Lindbergh kidnapping, the United States Congress passed a federal kidnapping statute—known as the Federal Kidnapping Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1) —which was intended to let federal authorities step in and pursue kidnappers once they had crossed state lines with their victim. The act was first proposed in December 1931 by Missouri Senator Roscoe Conkling Patterson, who pointed to several recent kidnappings in the Missouri area in calling for a federal solution. Initial resistance to Patterson's proposal was based on concerns over funding and state's rights. Consideration of the law was revived following the kidnapping of Howard Woolverton in late January 1932. Woolverton's kidnapping featured prominently in several newspaper series researched and prepared in the weeks following his abduction, and were quite possibly inspired by it. Two such projects, by Bruce Catton of the Newspaper Enterprise Association and Fred Pasley of the Daily News of New York City, were ready for publication within a day or two of the Lindbergh kidnapping. Both series, which ran in papers across North America, described kidnapping as an existential threat to American life, a singular, growing crime wave in which no one was safe.

Ponchai Kamau Wilkerson was a convicted murderer executed by lethal injection by the U.S. state of Texas. He was convicted for the 28 November 1990 murder of jeweler Chung Myong Yi. He was convicted by a jury on July 16, 1991 and ten days later sentenced to death by the same jury.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Capital punishment in Texas</span> Overview of capital punishment in the U.S. state of Texas

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Texas for murder, and participation in a felony resulting in death if committed by an individual who has attained or is over the age of 18.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marvin Lee Wilson</span> American murderer (1958-2012)

Marvin Lee Wilson was executed by the State of Texas on August 7, 2012, despite experts finding his IQ was 61. Supreme Court rulings subsequent to his execution in 2014 and 2017 ruled that the Eighth Amendment protected people with this low of an IQ from being executed under the discretion some states, including Texas, were using at the time. Texas successfully used crime allegation specifics to argue against the expert IQ, but the states are no longer allowed to do that. He entered death row on May 9, 1994, for the murder of a police drug informant who had caught him dealing cocaine. On November 10, 1992, Wilson abducted and shot 21-year-old Jerry Robert Williams following a physical confrontation between the two in the 1500 block of Verone in Beaumont. Wilson then left the body of Williams at a bus stop where it was later found by a bus driver. At the time of the murder, Wilson had two previous convictions for robbery, one of them aggravated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Huntsville Unit</span> Texas state prison

Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville or Huntsville Unit (HV), nicknamed "Walls Unit", is a Texas state prison located in Huntsville, Texas, United States. The approximately 54.36-acre (22.00 ha) facility, near downtown Huntsville, is operated by the Correctional Institutions Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The facility, the oldest Texas state prison, opened in 1849.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allan B. Polunsky Unit</span> State prison in West Livingston, Texas formerly known as the Terrell Unit

Allan B. Polunsky Unit is a prison in West Livingston, unincorporated Polk County, Texas, United States, located approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) southwest of Livingston along Farm to Market Road 350. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) operates the facility. The unit houses the State of Texas death row for men, and it has a maximum capacity of 2,900. Livingston Municipal Airport is located on the other side of FM 350. The unit, along the Big Thicket, is 60 miles (97 km) east of Huntsville.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ellis Unit</span> Prison in Texas, United States

O. B. Ellis Unit is a Texas Department of Criminal Justice prison located in unincorporated Walker County, Texas, 12 miles (19 km) north of Huntsville. The unit, with about 11,427 acres (4,624 ha) of space,‌ now houses up to 2,400 male prisoners. Ellis is situated in a wooded area shared with the Estelle Unit, which is located 3 miles (4.8 km) away from Ellis. From 1965 to 1999 it was the location of the State of Texas men's death row.

The Barry B. Telford Unit (TO) a.k.a. Telford Unit is a Texas state prison located in unincorporated Bowie County, Texas. The facility, along Texas State Highway 98, is 2 miles (3.2 km) south of Interstate 30. It has a "New Boston, Texas" mailing address, and is in proximity to Texarkana. The Telford Unit is operated by Texas Department of Criminal Justice Correctional Institutions Division, administered within Region II.

Glenn Ford was convicted of murder in 1984 and released from Angola Prison in March 2014 after a full exoneration. Ford was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. He was the longest serving death row inmate in the United States to be fully exonerated before his death. He was denied compensation by the state of Louisiana for his wrongful conviction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony Charles Graves</span> American exonerated death row inmate

Anthony Charles Graves is the 138th exonerated death row inmate in America. With no record of violence, he was arrested at 26 years old, wrongfully convicted, and incarcerated for 18 years before finally being exonerated and released. He was awarded $1.4 million for the time he spent imprisoned, and the prosecutor who put him in prison was ultimately disbarred for concealing exculpatory evidence and using false testimony in the case.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gustavo Julian Garcia</span> American murderer (1972–2016)

Gustavo Julian Garcia Jr. was an American prisoner from McKinney, Texas, who was executed for the 1990 murder of Craig Turski.

Robert Lynn Pruett was a Texas man convicted and executed for the 1999 murder of TDCJ Correctional Officer Daniel Nagle at the McConnell Unit, Bee County. Pruett had been certified as an adult at 16 and was already serving a 99-year sentence for his involvement in the murder of Ray Yarborough, which occurred when Pruett was 15. Pruett was convicted along with Howard Steven "Sam" Pruett Sr., his father, who received a life sentence for his participation in the murder, and Howard Steven Pruett Jr., his brother, who received a 40-year sentence. Howard Sr. testified that neither son took part in the killing, as did Robert, who was nonetheless convicted under the Texas law of parties. Details of both the Yarborough and Nagle murders were featured in the BBC documentary Life and Death Row - Crisis Stage.

Martin Edward Gurule was an American prisoner who successfully escaped from death row in Texas in 1998. It was the first successful breakout from Texan death row since Raymond Hamilton was broken out by Bonnie and Clyde on January 16, 1934.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wayne C. Doty</span> American murderer on death row

Wayne Charles Doty is an American double murderer currently on death row for the May 17, 2011 murder of 21-year-old fellow inmate Xavier Rodriguez.

References

  1. "An interview with escapee Charles Victor Thompson". 14 December 2005.
  2. "Charles Victor Thompson (Petitioner), v. Lorie Davis (Respondent), Civil Action No. H-13-1900" (PDF). cases.justia.com. 23 March 2017.
  3. "Justice for Charles Thompson: Wrongful Death Row Conviction".
  4. Rodriguez, Roger (31 December 2008). The Grass Beneath His Feet: The Charles Victor Thompson Story. AuthorHouse. ISBN   978-1434364791.
  5. "Inside Polunsky". solitarywatch.com. 21 May 2013.
  6. Ridgeway, James; Casella, Jean (2 May 2013). "America's 10 Worst Prisons: Polunsky". Mother Jones .
  7. Chuck Thompson. "Between the Bars".