Friday, February 14, 2025 - A Texas man who confessed to killing four people issued his final apologies to the families of his victims moments before he was ex3cuted.
Richard Lee Tabler, 46, was given a lethal injection at the state
penitentiary in Huntsville on Thursday night, February 13.
Tabler, who was convicted of killing a strip club manager and another
man but confessed to having taken two other lives, made a desperate attempt to
convey his regret before his end.
'There is not a day that goes by that I don't regret my actions,' Tabler
said, strapped to the d3ath chamber gurney, looking at relatives of his victims
who watched through a window.
'I had no right to take your loved ones from you, and I ask and pray,
hope and pray, that one day you find it in your hearts to forgive me for those
actions,' Tabler said. 'No amount of my apologies will ever return them to
you.'
He expressed love to his family and friends, lawyers and supporters, and
he thanked prison officials for their compassion and 'the opportunity to show
you that I can change and become a better man and rehabilitate.'
'If you feel that this what you need to get you closure, I pray it helps
you have that closure. I just hope that one day you find forgiveness to forgive
me for taking your loved ones from you,' he said.
After apologizing several more times and saying this was the
beginning of a new life for him in heaven, he told the warden: 'I am
finished.'
As the drugs began, he mouthed once again, 'I'm sorry,' then began
breathing quickly. After about a dozen breaths, he stopped moving.
Tabler was executed for the murders of Mohammed-Amine Rahmouni, 28, and
Haitham Zayed, 25, in 2004.
In November 2004, Tabler and codefendant Timothy Doan Payne lured Zayed
and Rahmouni into a meeting, drove up next to their vehicle, and shot them
both, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Tabler pulled him out of the car, and Payne videoed Tabler shooting
Rahmouni again.
Rahmouni was the manager of a strip club where Tabler worked until he
was banned, and Zayed was a friend of the club manager.
Investigators said he had a conflict with his boss, Rahmouni, who
allegedly said he could have Tabler's family 'wiped out' for $10.
Prosecutors also presented a confession from Tabler for the murders of
two teenage girls who also worked at the club, Tiffany Dotson, 18, and Amanda
Benefield, 16. He was indicted but never tried in their killings.
Dotson's father, George, was among those who witnessed Tabler's
execution. He declined to comment on Tabler's apologies, saying he needed time
to process what he had just seen but was glad to have seen it
'I couldn't wait,' he said. 'It took me 20 years to get here.'
'Today is for Tiffany,' said her godfather, Tom Newton. 'And this is
justice.'
The death row inmate said that during his time in prison, he found God
and, in a statement to USA Today through his wife, he said: 'I take
full responsibility for my actions of 20 years ago, and sadly, I can't go back
in time and just walk away.'
Tabler's mother, sister and wife told the outlet that despite his
actions he is a 'loving and selfless man who doesn't deserve to die.'
'The Richard that I know is not the man that they portray to be a
monster,' said his wife, who met Tabler through a prison letter-writing
program. 'I've never met anybody, even out here in the free world, that has a
heart bigger than his.'
Tabler, who his family say raised a baby lizard he called 'Little Blue'
in his prison cell, will be the second inmate executed in Texas in a
little over a week, with two more scheduled by the end of April.
'He didn't want us to be at the execution,' his sister said. 'And I'm
like, "No, we're gonna be there." My mom's point was, "You're
not gonna die alone. I want our faces to be the last faces you see."'
However, Tabler has felt remorseful for his actions and wrote in Within
the Shadows of Life that he was 'unable to get over the hatred for myself, for
the pain I caused so many and my loved ones.'
Tabler had repeatedly asked that his appeals be dropped and that he be
put to death. However, he changed his mind several times and his attorneys
questioned whether he was of sound mind to make that decision.
His prison record includes at least two instances of attempted suicide,
and he was previously granted a stay of execution in 2010.
'Petitioner has spent the last twenty years in the Courts, and sees no
point in wasting this Courts time, nor anyone else's,' Tabler wrote to the
state Court of Criminal Appeals on December 9, 2024, after his current
execution date was set.
The death row inmate was also found in 2008 to have smuggled a cell
phone in to make calls, including to threaten state Senator John Whitmire who
is now mayor of Houston.
Tabler's actions prompted a lockdown of more than 150,000 inmates in the
nation's second-largest prison system.
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