Convicted murderer executed in Texas for fatally shooting, robbing Houston drug dealer

Texas man executed for drug dealer’s slaying

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A Texas man convicted in the shooting death of a suspected drug dealer during a robbery 18 years ago was executed Wednesday, the 17th this year in the nation’s busiest death penalty state.

Stephen Moody, 52, strapped to the Texas death chamber gurney at Walls Unit in Huntsville, about 70 miles north of Houston, addressed his victim’s mother and son as they watched through a window.

“I was unable to respond to you in the courtroom,” he said. “I can only ask that you have the peace that I do.”

After expressing love to his relatives and friends watching through an adjacent window, he said: “Warden, pull the trigger.”

The lethal drugs began flowing into his arms at 6:20 p.m., and he was pronounced dead eight minutes later. Moody had asked that no last-minute appeals be filed to try to block his execution.

Moody accepted responsibility for killing Joseph Hall, 28, with a blast from a sawed-off shotgun at Hall’s Houston home in October 1991. Hall was described at Moody’s trial as a drug dealer known to carry a lot of cash, a characterization Hall’s son disputed in a written statement released following the execution.

Joseph J. Hall said the death had nothing to do with drugs but rather for money his father received “from an accident which left him crippled.”

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review Moody’s case last year after a federal appeals court rejected questions raised about jury selection procedures at his 1993 trial.

The former oil field worker from Houston had previously served prison time for robbery, auto theft and two terms for burglary.

“You pay for what you do,” Moody told The Associated Press a few weeks ago. “I had plenty of chances in my life.”