Richard Lee Tabler, 46, is scheduled to be executed Thursday at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the 2004 murders of two men, The Associated Press reports.
Tabler’s case gained notoriety not only for the brutal nature of the crimes but also for a 2008 incident in which he used a smuggled cellphone while on death row to threaten a state senator, prompting a statewide prison lockdown.
Tabler was convicted of the Thanksgiving 2004 shooting deaths of Mohammed-Amine Rahmouni, 28, and Haitham Zayed, 25, near Killeen, Texas. Rahmouni was the manager of a strip club where Tabler had previously worked, and Zayed was a friend of Rahmouni. Police said the victims were lured to a meeting under the guise of purchasing stolen stereo equipment, but it was in fact a planned ambush.
Tabler also confessed to killing two teenage girls, Tiffany Dotson, 18, and Amanda Benefield, 16, who also worked at the club. He was indicted for their murders but never tried.
Throughout the legal process, Tabler has vacillated between requesting that his appeals be dropped and expressing a desire to live. His attorneys have raised questions about his mental competency to make these decisions. Tabler’s prison record includes at least two attempted suicides, and he was previously granted a stay of execution in 2010.
In 2008, Tabler’s phone calls from death row to then-state Sen. John Whitmire, now the mayor of Houston, triggered an unprecedented lockdown of over 150,000 inmates within Texas’ prison system. Some inmates were confined to their cells for weeks while authorities searched over 100 prisons, seizing hundreds of items of contraband, including cellphones.
Whitmire, who then chaired a Senate committee overseeing state prisons, stated that Tabler threatened him, claiming to know the names of his children and their addresses. Whitmire, through a spokesperson, declined to comment on Tabler’s pending execution.
The ACLU filed an appeal with the US Supreme Court last year, arguing that Tabler was denied adequate legal representation during his lower court appeals because his attorneys refused to participate in hearings, citing his wishes. The ACLU also argued that Tabler’s attorneys disregarded a psychological evaluation indicating he had a “deep and severe constellation of mental illnesses” that had been ignored since childhood. The Supreme Court ultimately declined to halt the execution.
According to investigators, Tabler had a conflict with Rahmouni, who allegedly said he could have Tabler’s family “wiped out” for $10. Tabler then recruited a friend from nearby Fort Cavazos, and together they lured Rahmouni and Zayed to the fatal meeting. Tabler shot both men in their car, pulled Rahmouni out, and had his friend record a video of him shooting Rahmouni again.
Tabler confessed to these murders and, during his sentencing phase, prosecutors presented evidence that Tabler also killed Dotson and Benefield days later, fearing they would expose his involvement in the previous murders.
Investigators stated that before his arrest, Tabler called the Bell County Sheriff’s Office to taunt deputies about the murders and threatened to kill more strip club employees and undercover law enforcement at the club.
