Texas: Charles “Chuck” Thompson executed—first execution in the US in 2026

On Wednesday evening, 55-year-old Charles Victor Thompson was executed in Huntsville, Texas, by lethal injection, an overdose of pentobarbital.

He was sentenced to death for killing his ex-girlfriend’s 31-year-old new boyfriend in 1998 and seriously injuring the 39-year-old woman, who died days later. Thompson claimed he acted in self-defense and injured his ex-girlfriend when she tried to intervene in the fight between the two men. He turned himself in to the authorities the next day.

“Chuck” Thompson became famous because he managed to escape from a county jail in 2005 during a new trial. He was caught days later in Louisiana.

In his final words, he said: “I hope that the victim’s family, her relatives and loved ones can find forgiveness in their hearts and that you can begin to heal and move on. There are no winners in this situation; it creates more victims and traumatizes even more people 28 years later. I am sorry for what I did.”

The son of the ex-girlfriend—who was 13 at the time of the crime—was among the witnesses at the execution. Thompson’s death will not bring him closure, but his life is the only thing the perpetrator has left to offer “to account for the lives he destroyed.” “It’s more like the end of one chapter and the beginning of a new one,” the son said. “I’m looking forward to the new one.”

His pain has been exacerbated over the years by all the press attention on Thompson and by occasional hate mail from people who apparently sympathized with the death row inmate.

“That’s part of the problem with this grieving process,” he said. “I’ve mourned her and grieved her loss, but it’s still an active process because he’s so present in the public eye.” That has overshadowed who his mother was and what she stood for.

Opponents of the death penalty point out that a life sentence would probably have brought the perpetrator far less attention.

Sources:
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/01/28/texas-execution-charles-victor-thompson-dennise-hayslip/88404261007/
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/jeffhood/wade-hayslip-a-letter-on-charles-thompsons-execution/