News

Texas Executes Elroy Chester, Who Confessed to a Port Arthur Killing Spree, for the 1998 Murder of a Firefighter

Chester told victims' relatives not to hate him. The Supreme Court rejected a final appeal over a federal appeals judge's remarks about his case.

Published

Illustration of an empty waiting room with rows of chairs facing a closed steel door. Not the actual prison.

Elroy Chester confessed to killing several people around Port Arthur, Texas, during a six-month crime spree. On June 12, 2013, Texas executed him for the murder of firefighter Willie Ryman III.

Chester, 43, was pronounced dead at 7:04 p.m. in Huntsville, 27 minutes after the lethal drug was administered. "Don't hate me. I'm sorry for taking your loved one," he told victims' relatives. The execution went ahead after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a final appeal challenging the conduct of a federal appeals judge who had joined a ruling that he was not mentally impaired; his lawyers did not contest his guilt. He was the 499th person executed in Texas since 1982. "After 15 years, it's a long time coming," said Barry Ryman, the firefighter's brother.

On February 6, 1998, Chester broke into a Port Arthur home and sexually assaulted two teenage girls, and their uncle, Ryman, was shot and killed when he came in, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Chester, who had served earlier prison terms for burglary, was arrested soon afterward and pleaded guilty to killing Ryman, 38, and a jury took 12 minutes to choose death. He also confessed to killing John Henry Sepeda, 78, Etta Mae Stallings, 87, Cheryl DeLeon, 40, and his brother-in-law, Albert Bolden Jr., 35, the Associated Press reported, and ballistics tests matched his gun to Ryman's killing and four others.

The Associated Press reported that Chester confessed to five killings, while the Texas prison system's summary said he confessed to the Ryman murder, two other murders and three attempted capital murders. The Associated Press gave his age as 44; the prison record's date of birth, June 14, 1969, made him 43 on the day of his execution.

Sources