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Published 15:12 31 Jul 2026 GMT
Jason Thornburg killed three people in a motel room in Fort Worth, Texas, over the course of a single week.
He dismembered all three in the bathtub, ate parts of their bodies, stored the remains in plastic bins under his bed, drove them to a commercial area, dumped them in a skip, and set the whole thing on fire.
When detectives asked him why, his answer was simple but terrifying.
He said he had been 'called to commit human sacrifices'.
What's more, he said that God had told him to do it.
Thornburg, now 45, was sentenced to death in December 2024.
He is currently on death row at the Polunsky Unit in Texas. His legal team has filed a notice to appeal.
David Lueras, 42. Lauren Phillips, 34. Maricruz Mathis, 33. All three were killed at a motel in Euless, a suburb of Fort Worth, between approximately September 15 and September 22, 2021.
Lueras had been staying with Thornburg at the motel for several days. According to the arrest warrant, Thornburg believed Lueras 'needed to be sacrificed'.
He slit his throat and dismembered the body in the bathtub, then kept the remains in bin bags under his bed for several days before buying Rubbermaid storage tubs to put them in.
He ate part of Lueras's heart and cut off his penis.
Two days later, a woman arrived at the motel room.
Thornburg slit her throat and dismembered her the same way.
Two days after that, a second woman showed up.
He stabbed and strangled her, violated her body after she was dead, then dismembered her and added the remains to the bins.
The two women were later identified as Phillips and Mathis.
Thornburg told police he knew them both casually.
On September 22, 2021, at 6:15am, firefighters in west Fort Worth responded to a dumpster fire behind a business on Bonnie Drive.
When they put the blaze out, they found human body parts inside.
Badly burned and heavily dismembered - some parts missing entirely.
Thornburg had loaded the storage bins into his Jeep Grand Cherokee, driven to the site, transferred everything into the dumpster, and torched it.
Then he went back to the shop where he had bought the Rubbermaid bins, cleaned them, and returned them.
CCTV from the area showed a Jeep Grand Cherokee near the dumpster around the time of the fire.
There were 7,000 of the same make and model registered locally. But an officer going through the list recognised Thornburg's name. He had come up as a suspect in an apartment fire a few months earlier.
That fire, on May 21, 2021, had killed Thornburg's 61-year-old roommate Mark Jewell.
At the time, the medical examiner could not determine a cause of death because of the fire damage. Thornburg later confessed he had slit Jewell's throat, uncapped a gas line, and lit a candle in the room.
Detectives tailed Thornburg for several days. On September 27, they approached him as he left a house in Arlington. He agreed to talk.
He confessed to everything in what police described as 'intimate detail'.
Then detectives asked if there had been any more sacrifices.
"He responded that he had sacrificed the body of his girlfriend in Arizona," the arrest warrant states. That was 36-year-old Tanya Begay, killed in 2017.
Five confessed murders. Two states. Four years.
A 41-year-old electrician's apprentice from the Fort Worth area.
He had a minor criminal record, a 2018 conviction for evading arrest that got him six months before parole - but nothing that would have flagged him.
He told investigators he had 'an in-depth knowledge of the Bible' and that his reading of scripture had led him to believe God wanted him to carry out ritual killings.
He had attended a Christian leadership conference taught by one of the people he later murdered.
On a worksheet at that conference, he wrote that he wanted to be a missionary and that his greatest strength was 'a sense of purpose, a sense of destiny that must be achieved'.
Fort Worth Police Chief Neil Noakes said the crime scene was 'not something anyone should ever have to see'.
Thornburg was indicted in December 2021.
A judge found reasonable cause to believe he had a mental illness or intellectual disability and ordered a psychiatric evaluation. The case took three years to reach trial.
His defence team argued he was insane when he carried out the murders, citing mental illness and partial fetal alcohol syndrome.
The jury rejected the insanity defence.
On November 20, 2024, Thornburg was convicted of all three counts of capital murder. He sat motionless as the verdict was read.
On December 4, the same jury sentenced him to death. They were sobbing as they delivered the sentence. Thornburg showed no reaction.
Family members addressed him directly during the sentencing phase.
Norma Harris, whose sister Maricruz Mathis was one of the three victims, told him: "Your actions have caused a lot of pain.
"The worst part of all this is that even after we do get justice, we will still be missing our loved ones."
Court records show Thornburg's attorney has since filed a notice to appeal.
Given the pace of capital cases in Texas, legal experts have said the appeals process could take years, potentially decades, before any execution date is set.
Thornburg is being held at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit near Livingston, Texas, the state's death row facility.
Texas has carried out more executions than any other state since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
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Published 14:06 14 Nov 2023 GMT
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Published 15:54 05 May 2023 GMT
Published 15:28 08 May 2026 GMT
Convicted child killer Tanner Horner will spend the remainder of his life on death row at one of Texas’ most notorious prisons after a jury sentenced him to death this week.
The 34-year-old former FedEx driver has been transferred to the Polunsky Unit, a maximum-security prison near Houston known for its harsh death row conditions.
Inmates there are held in near-total isolation, spending at least 22 hours each day alone inside 60-square-foot cells.
The murderer arrived at the prison on Tuesday, only hours after receiving the death sentence for the murder of a seven-year-old girl, Athena Strand.
He admitted to strangling the child while delivering a Christmas package to her family home four years ago.
Under Texas law, his conviction automatically triggers an appeal, meaning his execution is unlikely to happen anytime soon. Depending on how aggressively he challenges the verdict, Horner could remain on death row for several years, or even decades.
Some inmates at the Polunsky Unit have spent nearly 50 years awaiting execution, with the longest-serving prisoners dating back to 1977.
However, that said, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice says the average stay on death row is just over 11 years, with one inmate being executed after only 252 days in 1996.
It remains unclear whether Horner plans to pursue lengthy appeals, having admitted to killing Athena.
Jurors were also shown disturbing footage reportedly capturing him abducting the child and singing Christmas songs while carrying out the murder, evidence that ultimately helped secure the death sentence.
Inside the Polunsky Unit, Horner’s cell will reportedly contain only the bare essentials: a metal bedframe with a thin mattress, a metal desk, and a combined sink and toilet.
Horner will be permitted out of his cell for just one hour of exercise per day, though even then he will reportedly remain inside an enclosed cage designed to prevent contact with other prisoners.
Outside time will otherwise be limited to brief showers or monitored visits. Any meetings with visitors take place behind glass, meaning inmates are never physically allowed to interact with people from outside the prison.
The conditions at the Polunsky Unit have faced heavy criticism over the years. Advocacy organisation Solitary Watch has described the prison as “inhumane,” while relatives of inmates have referred to the conditions as “a form torture.”
In a 2023 lawsuit, prisoners challenged the facility’s long-term solitary confinement policy, describing it as a “psychologically and physically damaging practice” that they argued violated constitutional protections.
Texas introduced its strict death row policies in 1999 following the escape of seven inmates from another prison. State officials then centralized condemned prisoners at the Polunsky Unit in an effort to stop inmates from organizing together and to reduce the risk of future escapes.
A Texas man who spent more than three decades on death row uttered his final words to his victim's family.
On Thursday (November 9), Brent Ray Brewer, 53, was put to death by lethal injection at the Texas State Penitentiary in the town of Huntsville, prison officials confirmed.
He was convicted in 1991 for the killing of 66-year-old Robert Laminack in April 1990. The victim offered to give Brewer and his then-girlfriend, Krystie Lynn Nystrom, a lift to a Salvation Army hub in Amarillo, however, he was fatally stabbed in the neck by the couple, who then robbed him of $140.
Nystrom was sentenced to life in prison while Brewer was sentenced to death.
The inmate appealed for a stay of execution to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles but was unanimously denied. He was killed by lethal injection at 6:38PM Central Time last week.
But before he met his fate, Brewer sent a final message to Laminack's family - who were present for the execution - and it was delivered by the prison warden.
According to The Mirror, the prisoner said: "I hope you find peace, and I mean it," and added, "I would like to tell the family of the victim that I could never figure out the words to fix what I have broken."
"I just want you to know that this 53-year-old is not the same reckless 19-year-old kid from 1990," he concluded.
As the drugs took effect in Brewer's body, he gasped twice, snored several times, and then took a few quiet breaths. Within 30 seconds, all movement stopped, per Daily Mail.
Laminack's daughter, Debra Corbin, also offered some words after watching her father's killer being put to death, sharing: "Brent Ray Brewer was in prison more than 33 years. Our mom says our family has been in prison 33 years. We have been released today."
The execution came hours after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to step in over the inmate's claims that prosecutors had depended on false and discredited expert testimony at his 2009 resentencing trial.
Brewer's lawyers had argued that a prosecution expert, Richard Coons, falsely claimed that the prisoner would be a threat in society - a legal finding required to impose a death sentence.
"The Brent that Texas wished to execute is long gone," defense attorney Shawn Nolan said after the final appeal was rejected, via Daily Mail. "The Brent they are killing tonight is a kind, generous, peaceful, and thoughtful man who spent the vast majority of his time repenting and in religious studies."
"He is profoundly remorseful for his crime, committed when he was just nineteen, and he would have done anything to take back the pain he caused the victim's family," he added.
Brewer also apologized to Laminack's family in a video released by his lawyers. "I am sorry for what I did. Even if it doesn't change the outcome at least they get to hear it before I go," he said.
"When you're 19 or 20 and you're confused, or you're on drugs and drinking, or you're hanging around the wrong people, you have no real value system," he continued. "I guess you'd call it a moral compass."
"I sobered up in the county jail and realized that I had done something I can't undo. And I just have had to live with that every day," he concluded.
Published 13:57 04 Oct 2023 GMT
The final words of a Florida inmate before being put to death nearly 30 years after he killed two women have been revealed.
On Tuesday (October 3), Michael Zack III, 54, was pronounced dead around 6:15PM following a lethal injection at Florida State Prison in Starke.
He was executed for the 1996 murder of bartender Ravonne Smith, whom he befriended before brutally beating and stabbing her to death with an oyster knife.
The prisoner was also convicted and separately sentenced to life in jail for murdering Laura Rosillo, whom he met at a bar in a nearby county.
According to Fox News Digital, Zach allegedly declined a last meal but did meet with his wife before his death.
He was asked if he had any last words, and he answered: "Yes sir." He then raised his head to look at the witnesses and said: "I love you all."
Zack's horrific nine-day crime run began in Tallahassee, where he was a regular at a bar. When his girlfriend informed him that he was being evicted, she offered to loan him her pickup truck and he left with it and never returned, according to The Guardian.
He then drove to a Niceville bar in the Florida panhandle, where he became friends with a construction company owner who allowed him to stay at his home after finding out that Zack was living in the pickup truck. Court records revealed that Zack later stole the owner's two guns to pawn them, and also took $42.
At one bar, Zack met Rosillo and invited her to the beach to engage in substance abuse. He then brutally manhandled her, strangled her, pulled her partially dressed body into the dunes, and kicked sand over her face.
The following day he went to a Pensacola bar, where he met Smith. The two went to the beach to smoke marijuana and later she took him to the home she shared with her boyfriend.
Once he arrived at her house, Zack struck her over the head with a bottle, bashed her head on the floor, raped her, and then stabbed her four times in the center of the chest with the oyster knife.
He then robbed her television, purse, and VCR and tried to pawn the electronics. However, the pawn shop believed the electronic goods were stolen so Zack ran away and stayed in an empty house for two days before being apprehended by police.
Reportedly, Zack confessed to killing Smith and claimed that he became furious and beat her when she made a remark about his mother's murder, which his sister committed.
Zack also told investigators that he believed Smith was going to another room to get a firearm, claiming he was acting in self-defense when he stabbed her.
There had been a last-minute request from the inmate's lawyers to stop the execution as they contended that he was a victim of fetal alcohol syndrome and post-traumatic stress disorder.
However, the US Supreme Court denied Zack's appeal for a stay of execution on Monday afternoon without comment.
A death row killer apologized to his victim just moments before he was executed.
Darryl Barwick was only 19 years old when he brutally stabbed Rebecca Wendt after he saw her sunbathing by the pool of her apartment complex in Panama City.
He then followed her home so he could see where she lived, went to his own place, and grabbed a knife before returning back to Wendt's apartment and stabbing her to death.
The 24-year-old's sister, who moved with her to the area from Huron, Ohio, came home to discover Wendt's body laying in a pool of her own blood in the bathtub, still in her bathing suit.
According to the Pensacola News Journal, she had been stabbed a total of 37 times.
"[Barwick] sees the bathing suit-clad young lady, 24 years old," the prosecutor told the jury during the killer's first trial."Obviously decent looking, nice looking. On his way back, he sees her․ He then plans, 'I'm going back there.' He goes back, goes back to the very same spot. He then eyes two women who are sunbathing as if to select his victim."
Barwick was arrested a few weeks later after confessing to the murder to his brothers who would later stand on trial against him and confess that he had a history of sexual assault. Though the coroner could not determine if Wendt had been sexually assaulted during the crime, evidence showed that there was semen present on the comforter found on her body in the bathtub.
DNA suggested that it was likely to be Barwick's as he fell into the 2 percent of people that it could match.
He was found guilty of murder in November 1986 and was sentenced to death. So far, the now 56-year-old has served 36 years on death row.
It was announced that he would finally be executed on May 3 after an earlier retrial on appeal. However, he was unsuccessful and was re-sentenced to death.
Before his execution took place, Barwick had a few words for the victim and her family.
"It’s time to apologize to the victim’s family, to my family. I can’t explain why I did what I did," he said, as per a new report by the Pensacola News Journal. "And another thing I would like to say, the state of Florida needs to show some kind of compassion and kindness for each other with so many kids in prison. There are 14- and 15-year-olds serving life sentences."
The outlet also reported that he was lying on a gurney and looking up as he spoke.
No members of Barwick's family or the victim's family were present during the speech, though there were other witnesses present to see the execution.
According to the report, the killer died at approximately 6:14 PM after he was administered a lethal injection via his arm. The procedure started at 6:02 PM and he died 12 minutes later.
For his last meal, the Florida Department of Corrections said Barwick ordered fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, black-eyed peas and rice, cornbread, strawberry ice cream, and a cola.
