Texas Executes Edward Busby Jr. for 2004 Murder of Retired Professor, Becoming State’s 600th Execution Since 1982

Edward Busby Jr. m. local time on Thursday at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. The execution made him the 600th person put to death in the state since it resumed the death penalty in 1982.

It was also the fourth execution this year in Texas and the 12th nationwide. U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that had issued the stay last week to review his claims of intellectual disability.

The Supreme Court acted at the request of the Texas Attorney General’s Office. Busby’s lawyers asked the 5th Circuit for an 11th-hour stay later Thursday evening but were quickly denied. Two other prior execution dates for Busby had been delayed by the courts.

The Supreme Court in 2002 barred the execution of intellectually disabled people while giving states some discretion to decide how to determine such disabilities. Experts for both prosecutors and defense attorneys said Edward Busby Jr. was intellectually disabled.

A defense expert and one hired by the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office both found he was intellectually disabled. The Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office had previously recommended that Busby’s sentence be reduced to life in prison. The trial judge in Busby’s case disagreed with the findings of intellectual disability and upheld the death sentence in 2023.

The district attorney's office stated Wednesday that it requested Thursday's execution date because it believed that under current law Busby was not intellectually disabled. The Texas Attorney General’s Office argued that Busby’s claims of intellectual disability are meritless and based on conflicting evidence.

The office also argued that the claims were time-barred and similar appeals were previously rejected.

@Independent reported that Busby was condemned for the suffocation death of Laura Lee Crane, a 77-year-old retired college professor from Texas Christian University. Laura Lee Crane was abducted from a grocery store parking lot in January 2004. Busby and co-defendant Kathleen Latimer abducted her in her car from a Fort Worth grocery store parking lot.

Prosecutors said she died after suffocating from having 23 feet (7 meters) of duct tape wrapped over her entire face, covering her mouth and nose. She was left to suffocate in the trunk of her car with duct tape wrapped around her face. Busby was arrested in Oklahoma City while driving Crane’s car.

He led authorities to Crane’s body in Oklahoma, just north of the Texas border. After his arrest, Busby told investigators that Latimer pushed him to abduct Crane and restrain her with tape and that he never meant for her to get hurt. Kathleen Latimer remains in prison after receiving a life sentence for murder.

Earlier Thursday, Oklahoma executed Raymond Johnson for killing his ex-girlfriend and her 7-month-old daughter nearly 20 years ago. Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, said before the execution: “The merits of this case are significant. ” The Supreme Court allowed the execution to proceed after overturning the stay Thursday.