Texas Inmate Executed For Death Of Woman

Wednesday, August 29th 2007, 7:38 am

By: News On 6

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) _ A former high school honors student was executed late Tuesday evening for the death of a woman who was one of four people gunned down in a holdup at an East Texas bar.

The lethal drugs were not administered to DaRoyce Mosley until the U.S. Supreme Court resolved a late appeal, about five hours after the scheduled time for the execution. He was executed about an hour before his death warrant would have expired.

In a brief final statement, Mosley said he appreciated the love and support he had received over the years.

``I will see you when you get there,'' he told witnesses, including his mother and sister. ``Keep your heads up. To all the fellows on the row, the same thing. Keep your head up and continue to fight.''

As the lethal drugs began flowing, he remarked, ``I can taste it.'' Nine minutes later, at 10:57 p.m. he was pronounced dead.

His mother and sister cried and sobbed as he died.

Mosley, 32, was the 22nd Texas inmate executed this year and the first of three to die on consecutive evenings in the nation's most active death penalty state.

Mosley didn't deny walking into the Kilgore bar intending to rob the place, but insisted his uncle, who accompanied him, was responsible for the slayings 13 years ago. The uncle, Ray Don Mosley, now 44, took a plea bargain and is serving life in prison.

DaRoyce Mosley said he wrongly confessed to the slayings of Patricia Colter, 54; her husband, Duane, 44; Alvin Waller, 54; and Luva Congleton, 68. Sandra Cash, then 32, who worked at Katie's Lounge in Kilgore, was shot in the spine but was able to call police.

A Gregg County jury condemned Mosley for Patricia Colter's death. He was denied clemency by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and late appeals to the courts argued that threats from Mosley's uncle coerced him into the shooting spree.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his appeals earlier Tuesday and his attorneys went to the Supreme Court late in the day.

``Made for a really long day,'' Shari O'Brien, Colter's sister, said after watching Mosley die. ``I know he won't be able to do this to another family.''

Cash, the lone survivor, last weekend told a lawyer working for Mosley that the uncle ordered Mosley to fire the shots. But Cash, according to attorney John Weigel, refused to elaborate on what Mosley did after the threat and cut off her conversation by saying only that Mosley ``deserved to die for ruining her life and for being involved in the killings of those people.''

Cash's comment ``would have either supported a theory of the case that DaRoyce ran or that he acted under duress,'' said Gary Bledsoe, one of Mosley's trial lawyers. ``It clearly is quite significant in terms of whether there is mitigation and whether DaRoyce is likely to commit future acts of dangerousness.''

The jury that condemned him had to agree they believed Mosley was a future threat.

Clement Dunn, one of the prosecutors at Mosley's trial, said he was confident the jury's verdict was correct.

Mosley, who had no previous prison record, grew up in an impoverished area of Kilgore but succeeded in high school. He won a spot on the student council, played sports, made the honor roll and then attended Kilgore College. But he said peer pressure from others in his neighborhood prompted him to slide, and eventually to accompany his uncle on the robbery.

``It's not so much that I wanted to,'' he told The Associated Press in a recent interview from death row, saying he fled when the shooting started. ``I turned around and ran out, and here I am. It's a messed-up situation all around.''