Elroy Chester

Elroy Chester (June 14, 1969 – June 12, 2013) was an inmate on Texas death row who was executed at the Huntsville Unit, Huntsville, Texas, two days before his 44th birthday. He was convicted in 1998 of fatally shooting Willie Ryman III, a firefighter in Port Arthur, Texas. He did so after raping Ryman's two nieces. He had confessed to four other killings, and his DNA was linked to three rapes, including that of a ten-year-old girl. After his arrest, he said that he had committed these offenses because he was out of his mind "with hate for white people" due to lingering resentment over an altercation that he had once gotten into with a white employee of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. During his trial, Chester made multiple outbursts, threatened the lives of police officers, prison guards, and the families of jurors, and at one point declared, "If I hadn't shot my brother-in-law, I'd still be out there shooting white folks." He was originally scheduled for execution on April 24, but, due to an error in the execution warrant, the date was pushed back.

The Texas court system ruled that Chester was legally competent to be executed, despite scoring below 70 on IQ tests and being previously placed in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's Mentally Retarded Offenders Program. In the prosecution's closing arguments, it was argued that his disability was not a sufficient reason to stay his execution. Since Chester was capable of hiding facts and lying to protect his own interests, using masks and gloves, and cutting exterior telephone lines before entering homes to burglarize, he showed persuasively that he was capable of forethought, planning, and complex execution of purpose. Therefore, the court found the evidence insufficient to support the claim that Chester was mentally retarded. In October 2012, the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal from Chester.