Texas death row inmate dies of complications after surgery

A state prison system spokesman said Thursday that a man who was on Texas death row for nearly 30 years after being convicted of killing his girlfriend and her two sons died of natural causes.
Henry “Hank” Skinner, 60, died Thursday afternoon at a hospital in Galveston, Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Robert Hurst said.

In a statement, Skinner’s lawyers said he died of complications from surgery to remove a brain tumor in December.

Skinner was to be executed on September 13th. Skinner was found guilty of capital murder for the New Year’s Eve 1993 deaths of 40-year-old Twila Jean Busby and her sons, 22-year-old Alvin Kahler and 20-year old Randy Busby. They were found dead at their home in Pampa, northeast of Amarillo, Texas.

Prosecutors said Skinner used an ax to kill Twila Busby and then fatally wounded her sons, who were both mentally handicapped.

Skinner has long maintained his innocence. He said he passed out on the couch from a mixture of vodka and codeine at the time of their deaths. Skinner and his lawyers pointed to Twyla Busby’s now-deceased uncle, Robert Donnell, as a possible killer.

“Mr Skinner was still contesting his sentence at the time of his death and we deeply regret that he passed away before these proceedings were completed,” his lawyers said in a statement.

Prosecutors said traces of Skinner’s DNA were found in the blood in the bedroom where Randy Busby was found stabbed to death and that his DNA also matched bloodstains throughout the house where the murders took place.

Skinner once showed up within an hour of his execution in March 2010, before the U.S. Supreme Court granted him a reprieve so he could perform DNA testing on crime scene items that had not been verified.

This evidence was not tested during Skinner’s trial because his lawyer feared the test results would be more damaging to his case.
“I’ve been set up ever since,” Skinner told The Associated Press in 2010. “They’re going to kill me for something I didn’t do.”

The audit was based on additional evidence. His lawyers argued that the test results showed that it was “reasonably probable” that he would have been acquitted of the murders had the jury heard evidence about this additional evidence. Prosecutors argued that much of the DNA evidence points to Skinner’s involvement.

In 2014, a judge ruled that Skinner would likely have been convicted even if additional DNA evidence had been presented at trial.

In October, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the judge’s decision.