HOUSTON — A Texas man who once escaped custody and was on the run for three days after being sentenced to death for shooting his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend nearly 27 years ago was scheduled Wednesday to be the first… executed In the United States this year.
Charles Victor Thompson was convicted of the April 1998 shooting death of his ex-girlfriend, Glenda Denise Haislip, 39; and her new boyfriend, Darren Keith Cain, 30, at her apartment in the Houston suburb of Tomball.
Thompson, 55, was scheduled to receive Lethal injection Wednesday evening at the state prison in Huntsville.
Prosecutors say Thompson and Haislip were romantically involved for a year but broke up after Thompson became “increasingly possessive, jealous and abusive.”
According to court records, Hayslip and Cain were dating when Thompson came to Hayslip’s apartment and began arguing with Cain around 3 a.m. the night of the murder. Police were called and asked Thompson to leave the apartment complex. Thompson returned three hours later and shot both Haislip and Kane, who died at the scene. Hayslip died in hospital a week later.
“The Haislip and Kane families have waited more than twenty-five years for justice,” prosecutors with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office said in court filings.
Thompson’s lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the execution, arguing that Thompson was not allowed to refute or confront the prosecution’s evidence that concluded Haislip died from a gunshot wound to the face. Thompson’s lawyers said Haislip actually died because of the flawed medical care she received after the shooting, which resulted in severe brain damage from oxygen deprivation after a failed intubation.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday denied Thompson’s request to commute his death sentence to a lesser sentence.
“If he was able to raise reasonable doubt about the cause of Ms. Haislip’s death, he would not be guilty of capital murder,” Thompson’s lawyers said in court filings to the Supreme Court.
The jury actually rejected that claim, concluding under state law that Thompson was responsible for Haislip’s death because it “would not have occurred but for his conduct,” prosecutors said.
Haislip’s family had filed a lawsuit against one of her doctors, claiming that medical negligence during her treatment led to her brain death. A jury in 2002 ruled in favor of the doctor.
Thompson’s death sentence was overturned and a new punitive trial was held in November 2005. The jury again ordered him to die by lethal injection.
Shortly after he was re-sentenced, Thompson escaped from the Harris County Jail in Houston by walking out the front door almost without being confronted by deputies. Thompson later told the Associated Press that after meeting with his lawyer in a small interview cell, he slipped out of handcuffs and an orange prison jumpsuit and left the room, which was open. Thompson waived the identification badge made from his prison ID card to bypass several deputies.
“I got to smell the trees, feel the wind in my hair, the grass under my feet, see the stars at night,” Thompson said of his three days on the run during a 2005 interview with the Associated Press. “It took me right back to my childhood when I was outside on a summer night.” He was arrested in Shreveport, Louisiana, while trying to arrange money transfers from abroad so he could reach Canada.
if to implement If this crime is carried out, Thompson will be the first person executed this year in the United States. Texas has historically held more Executions Than any other country, anyway Florida It had the highest number of executions in 2025, with 19.
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