Texas executed Edward Busby Jr. on Thursday evening, marking the state's 600th execution since it reinstated the death penalty in 1982. Busby, whom experts for both the prosecution and defense deemed intellectually disabled, was put to death by lethal injection at the Huntsville penitentiary for the 2004 murder of retired college professor Laura Lee Crane.
Execution Details
Busby was pronounced dead at 8:11 p.m. local time, hours after a divided U.S. Supreme Court lifted a stay that had temporarily blocked his execution. The high court's decision overturned a ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had halted the execution to further examine Busby's claims of intellectual disability. Busby's legal team made last-minute appeals to the 5th Circuit, but these were swiftly denied.
The Crime
Busby was convicted of suffocating 77-year-old Laura Lee Crane, a retired Texas Christian University professor. Prosecutors stated that Busby and his accomplice, Kathleen Latimer, abducted Crane from a Fort Worth grocery store parking lot in January 2004. They placed her in the trunk of her own car, wrapping 23 feet of duct tape over her face, covering her mouth and nose, leading to her death by suffocation. Busby was arrested in Oklahoma City while driving Crane's car and led authorities to her body near the Texas-Oklahoma border. Latimer received a life sentence for murder and remains incarcerated.
Intellectual Disability Controversy
The execution proceeded despite findings from a defense expert and an expert hired by the Tarrant County District Attorney's Office, both of whom concluded that Busby was intellectually disabled. The U.S. Supreme Court banned the execution of intellectually disabled individuals in 2002 but allowed states discretion in determining disability. The trial judge in Busby's case rejected the disability findings in 2023 and upheld the death sentence. The district attorney's office, which had previously recommended a life sentence, later stated it believed Busby was not intellectually disabled under current law. The Texas Attorney General's Office argued that Busby's disability claims were meritless and time-barred, urging the Supreme Court to lift the stay.
Criticism and Context
Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, criticized the attorney general's office for pursuing execution without a thorough review of Busby's disability claims, questioning the fairness of the process. Busby was the fourth person executed in Texas in 2026 and the 12th nationwide. Texas has historically carried out more executions than any other state. Earlier on Thursday, Oklahoma executed Raymond Johnson for the murder of his ex-girlfriend and her infant daughter nearly two decades ago.
