Texas carries out first execution since Christa Pike survived lethal injection using the same drug… as killer utters final words to victim’s family

DAILYMAIL.COM • 4h ago

By CLAUDIA AORAHA, DEPUTY HEAD OF NEWS and ASSOCIATED PRESS 21:33 07 Oct 2026, updated 04:39 08 Oct 2026

A Texas death row inmate has died from lethal injection after a last minute plea deal to the US Supreme Court was denied following the botched execution of Christa Pike.

Jamaal Howard, 46, was pronounced dead at 8.03pm Wednesday after receiving a fatal dose of pentobarbital at the state prison in Huntsville. He was convicted of killing of Vickie Swartout, 42, in a 2000 store robbery caught on surveillance video.

Asked by the warden if he had a final statement, Howard apologized profusely to members of his victim’s family, who watched through a viewing window just feet from the death chamber.

‘I wish that you accept my apology and I wish for your forgiveness,’ he said, shortly before the injection got underway. ‘I’m sorry for what happened. I wish you can learn to forgive me one of these days.’

He also thanked his friends and family and said he loved them, adding that he was ‘in a good state of mind to find peace and the Lord, so I thank y’all.’ He concluded with: ‘Hey, enjoy life, and peace to y’all.’

As the lethal dose of pentobarbital began taking effect, he took a couple of breaths and gasped. He then began making snoring sounds, coughed and resumed the snoring sounds, each sound becoming quieter. Within about 30 seconds, all movement stopped.

The execution came just hours after his lawyers desperately sought to get a judge to stay his execution, citing the failed execution of Pike in Tennessee last week.

Because the same drug used in her attempted execution – pentobarbital – would be used in Texas for Howard, his attorneys argued that the drug poses the same risks, and said they believe the state’s supply had become degraded.

Dr Jeff Hood, Howard’s spiritual advisor, wrote a piece for the Texas Observer and revealed what the killer said after being told about Pike’s botched execution.

Hood said: ‘When I told him that the drugs didn’t work in her case, he didn’t understand what drugs I was talking about. To him, nothing made sense. Suddenly both of us fell silent.

‘Finally Jamaal said: ‘I guess if the drugs don’t work, they’ll just shoot me in the head.”

Pike’s lawyers are seeking more information about what went wrong after 50-year-old Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital. She was hospitalized and, as of Tuesday, was awake and speaking.

Her attorneys have alleged her execution was marred by blown veins, where a needle goes all the way through a vein and causes a leak of blood and fluid, as well as Tennessee’s deteriorated pentobarbital and a lack of emergency medical care.

‘There is a similar risk,’ Howard´s attorneys wrote, ‘that Texas´s execution drugs are likewise degraded, as they are far past the original beyond-use dates that the pharmacopeia allows for drugs of this kind.’

Texas has executed six people so far this year, with two more scheduled after Howard’s – the 30th execution nationwide in 2026.

Howard was found guilty of capital murder in the 2000 killing of Vickie Swartout, 42, who was shot once in the chest during a robbery. Evidence presented at the trial included the store´s surveillance video, which showed Howard shooting Swartout.

Howard, who was 20 at the time, took $114 and a carton of cigarettes from the store in the small, rural town of Silsbee, located about 100 miles northeast of Houston, according to court records.

His attorneys have argued that Howard is intellectually disabled and his execution should be halted. The state said that he has not presented evidence that would show he meets the requirements for a claim of intellectual disability.

The Supreme Court in 2002 had barred the execution of intellectually disabled people. But it has given states some discretion in how they determine such disabilities.

The motion filed in the Court of Criminal Appeals in Texas early Wednesday said Howard’s attorneys had filed requests for information about the lethal dose of pentobarbital the Texas Department of Criminal Justice planned to use.

They say the department asked for a state attorney general opinion about whether they would have to disclose that information, despite a ‘years-long practice of disclosing information.’

The desperate filing came as lawyers in Tennessee said Pike is awake and ‘speaking limitedly’ one week after executioners attempted to give her two doses of lethal injections.

She was sentenced to death for the 1995 beating and stabbing death of classmate Colleen Slemmer.

After a court hearing to preserve the evidence from her failed execution on Wednesday, her lawyers shared details about her condition as she remains hospitalized.

‘On Monday night, it was our understanding that Christa was brain dead, and life support would be removed the next day, but on Tuesday, to the shock of everyone, including me, her team, and the medical team, Christa woke up and began talking,’ her lawyer, Randy Spivey, said.

‘I do not have an explanation for what happened between Monday night and Tuesday morning, but what we do know is that Christa has a long road to recovery.

‘She has a blood clot in one of her arms. She has pneumonia. She is not able to swallow yet, so she has not eaten.’

Spivey continued: ‘She cannot move either of her arms. Both of her arms and hands are tremendously swollen, and we do not know what, if any, function she will regain. She is shackled at her feet and on her right arm.’

During the court hearing on Wednesday, her lawyer, Luke Ihnen, asked the judge to remove the shackles on her hospital bed and give her access to a phone.

‘Up until yesterday, our client was unconscious, unable to communicate with counsel, unable to communicate with medical providers,’ Ihnen said.

Judge I’Ashea Myles did not rule on Pike’s requests, but asked her lawyers and the state to provide more information about how she could use a tablet at the hospital and to prove that medical staff want the shackles removed.

The lawyers were in court for an emergency hearing on Pike’s request to preserve all evidence from her failed execution on September 30.

But Tennessee’s Republican Gov. Bill Lee has halted the one remaining execution for the rest of the year.

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