A man who fatally stabbed a real estate agent inside a model home in suburban Dallas will be executed Wednesday night, more than 16 years after his murder is what happened.
Kosoul Chanthakoummane was on parole in July 2006 when he was found guilty of murdering his 40-year-old girlfriend Sarah Walker. She was found stabbed more than 30 times at a model home in McKinney, about 30 miles (48 km) away. north of Dallas.
Prosecutors say Chanthakumane entered the model home, beat and stabbed Walker with a wooden flower pot, then stole her Rolex watch and silver ring, but they were never found. did not. DNA evidenceindicated that Chanthakman's blood was found in various locations within the model's home, including under Walker's fingernails.
Walker was a top seller for homebuilder D.R. Horton. She is recently divorced and has two children.
His Chanthakoummane, 41, the son of immigrants from Laos, admitted to being at the model's house, but said he only went inside to drink water. Stated. He was on parole inTexasafter serving time in North Carolina on aggravated kidnapping and robbery charges.
"I am innocent," Chanthakmane said in a letter filed in federal court in March.
His lawyers have asked the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to stay his execution, disputing theDNA evidence.The appeals court this week denied the request. . Eric Allen, one of his lawyers for Chanthakoummane, said he had not yet decided whether to appeal to the United States Supreme Court.
His lawyers argued that new science may have transferred Chantakman's DNA to Walker's claws without direct contact.
However, , officials say previous DNA tests in his case failed to clear Chanthakman of suspicion.
"Chanthakoummane's belief that further investigation of his DNA would yield results useful in his case is illusory," an attorney with the Texas Attorney General's Office said in court documents last month. I am writing.
On Monday, the Texas State Pardon and Parole Board refused to give Chanthakmain either his 120-day reprieve or a commutation of his death sentence.
Chanthakoummane's attorneys say their concerns about the DNA evidence are part of the prosecutors' pattern of using false evidence in the case.
At the Chanthakoummane trial, a forensic dentist testified that a prisoner on death row was the cause of Walker's neck bites. Such evidence has since been discredited, and in 2016 Texas became the first state to seek a ban on bite analysis in criminal cases.
Two witnesses to Chanthakoummane, who claimed to have seen him near the murder scene, were hypnotized by Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) officers to help identify him.
According to his 2020 report by The Dallas Morning His News, despite criticism that hypnosis distorts memories and can lead to wrongful convictions, most Texas Judges still allow evidence derived from hypnosis. In January 2021, DPS stopped using hypnosis. Last year, Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed a bill banning hypnotized people from testifying in criminal trials.
In October 2020, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that although bite marks testimony was no longer admissible in court, Chanthakman's attorneys were unable to discredit testimony related to hypnosis.
The Court of Appeal also held that the DNA evidence remained strong.
At his trial, Chantakmain's attorney, Keith Gore, told the jury that his client was guilty and that "he tried to steal things [from Walker], but he didn't work out and killed her."
Walker's father, Joseph Walker, who died last year, opposed Chanthakman's execution and told the Times-Union in New York in 2013 that he had forgiven the perpetrators who killed his daughter.
If Chanthakoummane is executed, he would be the second inmate to be executed in Texas this year and his ninth in the United States. The state's death penalty is nearing historic lows. The number of death sentences handed down by juries continues to decline, and in recent years most executions have been delayed due to the pandemic and legal issues regarding what spiritual his advisers can do in the death chamber.
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