Laughing Texas inmate executed for 1998 murder
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A Texas inmate who taunted a jury to sentence him to death was executed Wednesday evening for torturing and drowning an East Texas woman in his bathtub, then stuffing her body into a barrel.
Troy Clark was condemned for the May 1998 slaying of a former roommate, Christina Muse of Tyler. Authorities said that Clark, a drug dealer, had worried that Muse would snitch on him.
Clark chuckled as he addressed several friends watching through a window a few feet from him, telling them a number of times that he loved them and “it’s all good.”
“I’m not the one who killed Christina,” he said. “But, hey, whatever makes you happy.”
As the lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital was administered, Clark was laughing and remarked that the drug “burned going in.”
“I feel it,” he said. Then he grunted, gasped and began to snore. Seconds later, all movement stopped. He was pronounced dead 21 minutes later at 6:36 p.m.
The 51-year-old Clark became the 17th inmate put to death this year in the U.S. and the ninth given a lethal injection in Texas, the nation’s busiest capital punishment state.
Prosecutors said Clark left Muse, 20, in a closet for several hours while he played video games and sold drugs to a customer.
Clark later moved Muse to a bathroom, where he hit her with a board and threatened his girlfriend, Tory Bush, into helping him drown Muse in the tub. Muse’s body was then stuffed into a barrel with cement mix and lime before being dumped in a ravine.