A Texas woman charged with starving a 9-year-old boy to death 10 years ago was executed Wednesday evening. Lisa Coleman, 38, was convicted of killing Davontae Williams, the son of her domestic partner Marcella Williams.
Davontae was emaciated and weighed just 35 pounds at the time of his death in 2004. Coleman and Williams were accused of restraining Davontae and depriving him of food and water. His body was covered with healed scars from past beatings. “There was not an inch on his body that not been bruised or scarred or injured,” said Dixie Bersano, one of Coleman’s trial prosecutors.
Coleman had exhausted all of her appeals to the Supreme Court which declined to stay her execution just before 6 p.m. Wednesday. She was executed by lethal injection and pronounced dead at 6:24 p.m. local time in Huntsville.
Coleman’s attorneys had argued that she did not kidnap the boy during the commission of murder, a charge that is considered capital murder in Texas.
“There is clear and convincing evidence that both Lisa Coleman and Marcella Williams abused Davontae Williams,” the petition states. “Lisa Coleman does not deny that she did things to Davontae Williams that she should not have done.”
Coleman’s lover, Marcella Williams, plead guilty to murder in exchange for a life sentence. Coleman had the same opportunity to plead guilty but she chose to take her case to trial.
Coleman is just the 15th woman to be put to death in the United States since 1976. Texas has the busiest execution chamber in the country, having executed 516 inmates since 1976.
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