Chicken for Charles

Sometimes a killer doesn’t choose his murder weapon beforehand, simply using anything that’s readily available. But in the case of Derrick Charles, the man used EVERYTHING that was available when he killed his three victims in 2002.

On the day of the murders, Charles illegally entered his girlfriend’s house and was surprised by the girl’s grandfather. Charles punched the man repeatedly, beat him with a lamp and some trophies, then strangled him with the lamp cord. When Charles’s girlfriend and her mother came home, Charles hit his girlfriend in the face with a car speaker then dropped a TV set on her head, killing her. He then tried to electrocute the girl’s mother by putting her in a bathtub full of water and throwing the TV in with her, but when that plan failed, Charles strangled her with an extension cord.

Charles was executed by the state of Texas tonight, which chose to skip all the cumbersome appliances and used a simple lethal injection instead. Because Texas no longer allows special last meal requests, Charles was given the same food as others in his unit. For his last meal, Derrick Charles had baked chicken, mashed potatoes, country gravy, carrots, black eyed peas, and sliced bread, with a choice of water, tea, or punch to drink.