Desperate last words of Texas death row inmate as he’s executed by lethal injection for killing two people
A Texas man who confessed to killing four people issued his final apologies to the families of his victims moments before he was executed.
Richard Lee Tabler, 46, was given a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville on Thursday night.
Tabler, who was convicted of killing a strip club manager and another man but confessed to have taken two other lives, made a desperate attempt to convey his regret before his end.
‘There is not a day that goes by that I don’t regret my actions,’ Tabler said, strapped to the death chamber gurney, looking at relatives of his victims who watched through a window.
‘I had no right to take your loved ones from you, and I ask and pray, hope and pray, that one day you find it in your hearts to forgive me for those actions,’ Tabler said. ‘No amount of my apologies will ever return them to you.’
He expressed love to his family and friends, lawyers and supporters, and he thanked prison officials for their compassion and ‘the opportunity to show you that I can change and become a better man and rehabilitate.’
‘If you feel that this what you need to get you closure, I pray it helps you have that closure. I just hope that one day you find forgiveness to forgives me for taking your loved ones from you,’ he said.
After apologizing several more times and saying this was the beginning of a new life for him in heaven, he told the warden: ‘I am finished.’
As the drugs began, he mouthed once again, ‘I’m sorry,’ then began breathing quickly. After about a dozen breaths, he stopped moving.
Tabler was executed for the murders of Mohammed-Amine Rahmouni, 28 and Haitham Zayed, 25, in 2004.
In November 2004, Tabler and codefendant Timothy Doan Payne lured Zayed and Rahmouni into a meeting, drove up next to their vehicle and shot them both, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Tabler pulled him out of the car, and Payne videoed Tabler shooting Rahmouni again.
Rahmouni was the manager of a strip club where Tabler worked until he was banned, and Zayed was a friend of the club manager.
Investigators said he had a conflict with his boss, Rahmouni, who allegedly said he could have Tabler’s family ‘wiped out’ for $10.
Prosecutors also presented a confession from Tabler for the murders of two teenage girls who also worked at the club, Tiffany Dotson, 18, and Amanda Benefield, 16. He was indicted but never tried in their killings.
Dotson’s father, George, was among those who witnessed Tabler’s execution. He declined to comment on Tabler’s apologies, saying he needed time to process what he had just seen but was glad to have seen it.
‘I couldn’t wait,’ he said. ‘It took me 20 years to get here.’
‘Today is for Tiffany,’ said her godfather, Tom Newton. ‘And this is justice.’
The death row inmate said that during his time in prison he found God and, in a statement to USA Today through his wife, he said: ‘I take full responsibility for my actions of 20 years ago, and sadly, I can’t go back in time and just walk away.’
Tabler’s mother, sister and wife told the outlet that despite his actions he is a ‘loving and selfless man who doesn’t deserve to die.’
‘The Richard that I know is not the man that they portray to be a monster,’ said his wife, who met Tabler through a prison letter-writing program. ‘I’ve never met anybody, even out here in the free world, that has a heart bigger than his.’
Tabler, who his family say raised a baby lizard he called ‘Little Blue’ in his prison cell, will be the second inmate executed in Texas in a little over a week, with two more scheduled by the end of April.
‘He didn’t want us to be at the execution,’ his sister said. ‘And I’m like, “No, we’re gonna be there.” My mom’s point was, “You’re not gonna die alone. I want our faces to be the last faces you see.”‘
However, Tabler has felt remorseful for his actions and wrote in Within the Shadows of Life that he was ‘unable to get over the hatred for myself, for the pain I caused so many and my loved ones.’
Tabler had repeatedly asked that his appeals be dropped and that he be put to death. However, he changed his mind several times and his attorneys questioned whether he was of sound mind to make that decision.
His prison record includes at least two instances of attempted suicide, and he was previously granted a stay of execution in 2010.
‘Petitioner has spent the last twenty years in the Courts, and sees no point in wasting this Courts time, nor anyone else’s,’ Tabler wrote to the state Court of Criminal Appeals on December 9, 2024, after his current execution date was set.
The death row inmate was also found in 2008 to have smuggled a cellphone in to make calls, including to threaten state Senator John Whitmire who is now mayor of Houston.
Tabler’s actions prompted a lockdown of more than 150,000 inmates in the nation’s second-largest prison system.
Some were confined to their cells for weeks while officers swept more than 100 prisons to seize hundreds of items of contraband, including cellphones.
Whitmire led a Senate committee with oversight of state prisons and said at the time that Tabler warned him that he knew the names of his children and where they lived.
Whitmire, through a spokesperson at the mayor’s office, declined to comment on Tabler’s pending execution.
Court documents from 2014 in the Us Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit state that Tabler’s counsel presented evidence at trial to ague he was ‘not normal’ and didn’t deserve the death penalty.
Witnesses were called to testify about his ‘difficult childhood,’ potential birth trauma and history of psychiatric treatment as well as an ‘abnormality of the left temporal frontal region of Tabler’s brain.’
A psychiatrist also reportedly took the stand and said Tabler suffered from a ‘severe case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, borderline personality disorder and a history of head injuries, all of which inhibited his ability to rationally assess situations and control his impulses.’
The jury, however, ruled he presented a ‘continuing threat to society,’ and he was sentenced to death.
Some organizations started petitions in an attempt to stop his execution, saying Tabler suffered from ‘severe mental impairments’ and was not provided adequate counsel during his appeal process.
Tabler was the second inmate executed in Texas in a little over a week, with two more scheduled by the end of April.
