Texas puts to death a man in killing of 3 during home robbery, the
state’s fifth execution this year
[September 17, 2026]
By MICHAEL GRACZYK, KATE BRUMBACK and JAMIE STENGLE
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A man has been put to death for the 2005 fatal
shooting of three people during an attempted robbery at his neighbor’s
home in rural Texas, the state’s fifth execution this year.
In Georgia, the execution of a man who killed two real estate agents had
also been scheduled for Wednesday but was halted by a judge’s late-night
decision a day before he was scheduled to die.
LeJames Norman, 40, was put to death by lethal injection Wednesday at
the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He’d been sentenced to death in
the fatal shootings of Samuel Roberts, 24, Tiffani Peacock, 18, and
Celso Lopez, 38, inside the home they shared in Edna, located about 100
miles (161 kilometers) southwest of Houston.
Ker’Sean Ramey was also convicted in the shootings and sentenced to
death. His execution is set for next week.
Court records indicated Norman and Ramey believed there was cocaine in
the house and hoped to steal it, but they never found any drugs. Norman
was arrested about five months after the killings while trying to cross
back into the U.S. from Mexico.
Norman pleaded guilty to capital murder, leaving a jury to decide his
punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court denied a request on Wednesday from
Norman’s attorneys to stop his execution.
No last words before execution
Asked by the warden if he wanted to make a final statement, Norman shook
his head.
He was laying on a thin mattress atop a steel table, his head on a white
pillow. He nodded toward a window through which a sister, two of his
children and a friend watched and made eye contact as one of them
danced.
As the lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital began taking effect, he
took a couple of deep breaths, appeared to yawn and made snoring sounds
— six of them. All movement then stopped.
Thirty minutes later, after a physician examined him, he was pronounced
dead at 6:44 p.m. and covered with a white sheet. Only his right hand
and lower forearm, covered with an elastic bandage, were visible.
No relatives or friends of the three murder victims in his case
witnessed Norman’s punishment.
Judge halts Georgia execution
Stacey Humphreys, 53, was convicted of malice murder and other crimes in
the 2003 killings of 33-year-old Cyndi Williams and 21-year-old Lori
Brown in an Atlanta suburb. He too had been scheduled to die by an
injection of the same drug at 7 p.m. EDT at the state prison near
Jackson.
However, a judge halted Humphreys’ execution late Tuesday after his
lawyers filed a petition seeking a resentencing under a new state law
that allows victims of abuse to have their sentences reconsidered and
reduced, if they can tie their crimes to abuse they suffered.
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The state appealed that ruling, asking the Georgia Supreme Court to
find that Humphreys is not entitled to have his sentence
reconsidered under the new law. But the high court declined to hear
that appeal before the scheduled execution time and left the lower
court's stay in place.
Georgia's high court said it would consider the questions raised
about the new law in the state’s appeal “in the ordinary course of
business and according to a forthcoming scheduling order.”
Killings at a model home and allegations of a biased juror
The two women who Humphreys killed were working as real estate
agents for a new subdivision in the Atlanta suburb of Powder
Springs. He entered the sales office in a model home around midday
on Nov. 3, 2003, and forced them to strip naked and give him their
bank PINs before fatally shooting them, according to evidence
presented at trial.
Humphreys withdrew more than $3,000 from the women's bank accounts,
according to court filings. He told police after his arrest that he
had recently taken out some high-interest payday loans and needed
money for a payment on his truck.
Witnesses told police they saw a man fitting Humphreys’ description
at the sales office and a vehicle in the parking lot that matched
his black Dodge Durango. Police zeroed in on Humphreys and tried to
question him at his Dunwoody home days later. He fled and was
arrested in Wisconsin after leading police on a high-speed chase.
In addition to the petition for a reduced sentence, Humphreys’
lawyers have argued that he should be resentenced because his death
sentence was tainted by a biased juror who lied during jury
selection and bullied other jurors into voting for a death sentence.
Courts have repeatedly rejected those arguments for procedural
reasons, though U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined
by the other two liberal justices, argued last year that the issue
should be further explored rather than leaving it “caught in a web
of procedural barriers.”
Additionally, Humphreys' lawyers have argued that it was not fair
that his clemency application was heard by only four members of the
five-person State Board of Pardons and Paroles. A judge had ordered
one member of the board to recuse herself, agreeing with Humphreys’
legal team that there was a conflict of interest because she
previously worked as a victim advocate with the Cobb County district
attorney’s office and had worked with the victims in his case. The
parole board on Tuesday denied clemency for Humphreys.
____
Brumback reported from Atlanta and Stengle reported from Dallas.
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