From Newsgroup: alt.obituaries

Charles Victor Thompson, 55, was executed by lethal injection on 28
January 2026 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of a man and woman in
their home.

On Thursday, 30 April 1998, at about 3:00 a.m., Houston police
responded to a disturbance call at the apartment of Dennise Hayslip,
39. They found her and her boyfriend, Darren Cain, involved in an
argument with Thompson, then 27, who was Hayslip's ex-boyfriend. No
one wanted to press charges, so the officers told Thompson to leave
the complex and to stay away. He returned three hours later with a
gun, kicked the door in, and shot Cain four times in the neck and
chest, killing him. He then reloaded the gun, turned to Hayslip, said,
"I can shoot you too, bitch," and fired once. The bullet struck
Hayslip in her cheek and passed through her face, partially severing
her tongue. Thompson then left the apartment, threw the gun into a
creek, and went to the house of a friend, Diane Zernia, where he fell
asleep.

Bleeding profusely, Hayslip sought help from neighbors. She was taken
to the hospital by helicopter. She fell into a coma while doctors were preparing for surgery. About a week later, her family took her off of
life support, and she died.

After Thompson awoke, he confessed to Zernia. He then phoned his
father, who took him to the police station, where he surrendered.

Thompson later called Zernia from jail and tried to persuade her to
lie about what he had told her. He stressed to her that she was the
only witness who could link him to the murders. She refused. Thompson
then attempted to arrange for fellow inmate Max Humphrey, who was
scheduled to be released on 30 June, to kill Zernia. He drew a map of
the murder weapon's location for fellow inmate Jack Reid and asked
Reid to pass the weapon's location along to a contact on the outside
so that the weapon could be retrieved. Reid instead went to the
police.

The police were unable to locate the murder weapon from the
information Reid had given them, so investigator Gary Johnson visited
Thompson at the jail, posing as Reid's outside contact. Johnson wore a
wire to record the conversation. Thompson told Johnson that he
believed Humphrey had betrayed him. and offered Johnson $1,500 to
retrieve the weapon and murder Zernia. During the meeting, he pressed
a map against the glass of the visitor's booth that was similar to the
one Reid had given them. He gave Johnson Zernia's home address and
described her husband, daughter, home, and vehicles to him and
discussed the best times to carry out the murder.

The police recovered the murder weapon from Cypress Creek on 18 July.

The Harris County district attorney charged Thompson with solicitation
of capital murder. Undeterred, on 21 August, Thompson solicited the
help of another inmate, Robin Rhodes. Thompson gave Rhodes a list of
people, including Zernia, who needed to be either killed or made
unable or unwilling to testify against him.

Thompson's criminal history began at age 14, when he committed a
string of crimes that resulted in over $60,000 of damage to homes and
property. While on probation from a juvenile corrections facility, he
stole his father's motorcycle, ran away, and went on another crime
spree. He was arrested in 1987 and sent to another juvenile facility.

As an adult, Thompson married, but later abandoned his wife and two
children. He was arrested in 1996 for transporting illegal immigrants
from Mexico.

A jury found Thompson guilty of capital murder in April 1999 and
sentenced him to death. In October 2001, the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals upheld his conviction, but ordered a new punishment hearing on
a 5-4 vote, with the majority finding that the prosecution violated
his Sixth Amendment right to counsel when it played the audio
recording of Thompson's jailhouse visitation conversation with
investigator Johnson for the jury.

Thompson was transferred from the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice's Death Row to the Harris County Jail in October 2005 for a
new sentencing hearing. He walked out of jail wearing street clothes
hidden in his cell, posing as an investigator with the attorney
general's office. He was on the loose for four days. He made it to
Shreveport, Louisiana, where he lived off of handouts by posing as a
Hurricane Katrina evacuee. A female penpal turned him for a $10,000
reward when he called to ask her for money to help him flee to Canada.

Upon his return to Harris County, a new jury resentenced Thompson to
death. The TCCA upheld that sentence unanimously in October 2007.

In February 2019, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to
hear Thompson's claim that the state improperly failed to disclose
that it had a past relationship with Robin Rhodes as a paid informant.
The appeals court ruled against Thompson in October 2019. All of his
subsequent appeals in state and federal court were denied.

In an interview with the Houston Press in October 2025, Thompson
maintained that he shot Cain in self-defense and that Hayslip got in
the way. He blamed her death on medical negligence. He also blamed
Houston police for not arresting him when they responded to the
early-morning disturbance call.

"It was obvious that I was three sheets to the wind," Thompson said.
"They let me walk off, I was staggering, and [they let me] get in my
car and drive away. I should have gone to jail for public
intoxication."

The witnesses to Thompson's execution included Dennise Hayslip's son,
Wade, who was 13 at the time of the murders.

At his execution, Thompson apologized for his actions and asked the
families of his victims to find it in their hearts to forgive him. He
also added, "There is no winners in this situation; it creates more
victims and traumatizes more people 28 years later." He urged
witnesses to keep Jesus first and asked his children to "get to know
the Lord." The lethal injection was then started. He was pronounced
dead at 6:50 p.m.

David Carson
Sources: Texas Department of Criminal Justice, court documents,
Houston Press.
--
Texas Execution Information
www.txexecutions.org
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