From: davidc@wa-wd.com   
      
   Richard Lee Tabler, 46, was executed by lethal injection on 13   
   February 2025 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of two men in their   
   car.   
      
   Tabler worked at a topless bar in Killeen. He quit or was fired after   
   getting into a conflict with the manager, Mohamed-Amine Rahmouni.   
   During their argument, Rahmouni allegedly waved a ten-dollar bill in   
   Tabler's face and said he could have his family "wiped out" for ten   
   dollars.   
      
   Tabler borrowed a pickup truck, 9-millimeter firearm, and a camcorder.   
   On Thanksgiving night, 25 November 2004, he called Rahmouni with an   
   offer to sell him some cheap stereo equipment. He told him they would   
   meet in the parking lot of a local business. Tabler, then 25, and his   
   friend, Timothy Payne, drove to the parking lot in the borrowed pickup   
   and waited. Rahmouni, 28, arrived with Haitham Zayed, 25 at about 2:00   
   a.m. on Friday. As soon as their car stopped, Tabler shot Zayed, who   
   was driving, and then Rahmouni. He then exited the pickup and pulled   
   both men out of their car. He saw that Rahmouni was still alive, so he   
   shot him a second time. He had Payne videotape part of the shooting.   
   He then took a wallet and black bag that he found inside the car.   
      
   At the time, Tabler was working with Officer Robert Clemons of the   
   Killeen Police Department as a confidential informant in exchange for   
   the department's nonprosecution of his theft of stereo equipment via   
   fraudulent check. Timothy Steglich, the Bell County Sheriff's   
   Department lead investigator in the killings, identified Tabler as a   
   person of interest in the case. He contacted Clemons, asking him to   
   set up a fake drug buy as a ruse to lure Tabler to the police station.   
   Tabler arrived at the station around 9:15 p.m. About ten minutes   
   later, the police informed Steglich that Tabler was getting anxious to   
   go perform the drug buy before the buyer left. Steglich then   
   instructed the police to arrest Tabler, even though he had not yet   
   obtained an arrest warrant.   
      
   The police told Tabler he was under arrest for theft. He then   
   spontaneously offered to give some information about some murders that   
   his friend, "Tim," committed. Steglich subsequently arrived, with the   
   arrest warrant, to interrogate him with Clemons. In his first two   
   statements, Tabler said that he was present when Tim committed the   
   murders, and he gave consent to search his rooms at two residences as   
   well as the car he drove to the police department.   
      
   Dissatisfied with Tabler's story, Steglich and Clemons continued to   
   question him. In his third written statement, given at 5:13 a.m., he   
   confessed that he planned and executed Rahmouni's murder,   
   intentionally murdered Zayed, and took a wallet and bag from Zayed's   
   car.   
      
   The videotape was not recovered. It was reportedly destroyed after a   
   friend of Tabler's watched it.   
      
   At his trial, Tabler recanted his confessions and pleaded not guilty.   
      
   At Tabler's punishment hearing, the state introduced evidence that   
   Tabler confessed to murdering Tiffany Dotson, 18, and Amanda   
   Benefield, 16, who were dancers at Rahmouni's bar, because he believed   
   they were telling people that he had killed Rahmouni and Zayed. He   
   admitted to luring them to a lake with the promise of drugs and then   
   shooting them each multiple times with the same weapon used to murder   
   Rahmouni and Zayed.   
      
   The defense presented evidence that Tabler was "not normal" and   
   therefore undeserving of the death penalty. This included testimony   
   from family and clinical experts about his difficult childhood, head   
   injuries, learning difficulties, and personality disorders.   
      
   A jury found Tabler guilty of capital murder in March 2007 and   
   sentenced him to death.   
      
   All death sentences in Texas are automatically appealed directly to   
   the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA). Additionally, defendants   
   are entitled to habeas corpus appeals, in which they may raise claims   
   that were not presented at their trial, or claims that the trial   
   itself was defective. In September 2008, while Tabler's direct appeal   
   was still pending, the trial court held a hearing on Tabler's request   
   to waive the habeas corpus phase of his state appeals. The court   
   subsequently granted Tabler's request. In June 2009, Tabler wrote a   
   letter to the court asking for his appeals to be reinstated. The CCA   
   reviewed the record of the September 2008 hearing and determined that   
   Tabler's decision to waive his appeals was informed and voluntary, and   
   it denied his request to reinstate them.   
      
   In October 2008, Tabler made a threatening phone call to Texas Senator   
   John Whitmire, chairman of the senate's Criminal Justice Committee,   
   using a cell phone that was smuggled into Death Row. This incident   
   prompted a statewide lockdown of the Texas prison system.   
   Investigators determined that some 2,800 calls were made from Tabler's   
   phone. Another eleven cell phones were found on Death Row alone, along   
   with nine chargers and three batteries. Two weapons were also found.   
      
   After the lockdown, Tabler was placed in a cell with 24-hour   
   surveillance that is normally used only for prisoners under "death   
   watch," meaning they have scheduled execution dates. His visitor list   
   was pared down to only a spiritual advisor and his lawyers.   
      
   Tabler attempted suicide in 2009, using a box cutter to carve a   
   7-inch, bone-deep gash in his arm. He was saved by guards. It is   
   unclear from news stories whether this occurred before or after he was   
   placed on death watch.   
      
   The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Tabler's conviction and death   
   sentence on direct appeal in December 2009. One of the main questions   
   in his appeal was the admissibility of his confession, which was the   
   end product of a sequence of events that included him being arrested   
   before a warrant was issued. The court ruled that although Tabler's   
   arrest was illegal, his confession was "sufficiently attenuated from   
   the illegal arrest to be admissible."   
      
   In February 2010, a state judge signed an execution warrant for   
   Tabler. His attorneys succeeded in getting a federal district court to   
   issue a stay. In June, Tabler personally filed a motion to have the   
   stay rescinded and to allow his execution to proceed. The district   
   court then ordered another competency hearing. In August 2011, the   
   court found that Tabler was mentally competent and able to make a   
   rational decision about his appeals. The court ruled, however, that   
   Tabler's decision to waive his appeals was not voluntary, but was   
   instead the product of his belief, mistaken or not, that his family   
   would be harmed if he did not volunteer for execution.   
      
   In 2015, Tabler sent a four-page handwritten letter to the Associated   
   Press complaining the state's failure to execute him. He blamed "the   
      
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