HUNTSVILLE, Texas - He murdered two Dallas video store employees 14 years ago, boasted about his lack of remorse and promised a violent fight to the end.
But in the end, Leon David Dorsey IV died an uncharacteristically quiet death in the execution chamber Tuesday night.
"I love all y'all, I forgive all y'all," he said from his death bed, a white sheet pulled up to his chest. "See you when you get there.
"Do what you gonna do," Mr. Dorsey said to Huntsville Unit senior warden Charles O'Reilly.
Mr. Dorsey, 32, convicted eight years ago in the killing of two White Rock-area Blockbuster Video employees, was pronounced dead at 6:27 p.m. His death took nine minutes from the time the lethal dose began to flow into his veins.
From a small room to Mr. Dorsey's right, the parents of James Armstrong, 26, and the mother of Brad Lindsey, 20, watched quietly. They did not speak publicly after the execution, though Mr. Armstrong's parents issued a written statement.
"Perhaps Dorsey is as evil as Charles Manson and has no remorse, but I knew that I had to forgive him," Nanci Armstrong said in the statement. "I could do it in my head, but not in my heart. Until recently, when I realized that my heartache is for James alone, not for Dorsey; that my heart doesn't hurt for him; it was easy to let go and forgive."
Mr. Dorsey's sister and several friends watched from another room.
Mr. Armstrong and Mr. Lindsey were closing the video store on an April morning in 1994 when Mr. Dorsey came in and robbed them at gunpoint.
After stealing $392 from a front cash register, Mr. Dorsey walked the men to a back room. He grew agitated when Mr. Armstrong was apparently unable to open the safe. So he fatally shot both men and left.
The murders were one of the highest-profile Dallas cases of the decade, in part because of their brutality and because portions were captured on security tape.
Though Mr. Dorsey was considered a suspect beginning early in the investigation, he was not charged in the murders until 1998. By then, he was already serving a 60-year sentence for the murder of Ennis convenience store manager Hyon Suk Chon, 51, shot multiple times in the head in September 1994.
When Dallas police detectives confronted him with new information, he confessed to the crimes. Days later, he confessed again in a two-hour interview with The Dallas Morning News. He also expressed no remorse and likened the loss he brought on the Armstrong and Lindsey families to losing money in a craps game.
Mr. Dorsey was convicted in the Blockbuster case in 2000, and from his first days on death row he proved himself to be a violent, uncooperative inmate. He was cited for 95 infractions, including possession of weapons, assaulting and threatening to injure staff, refusing to obey orders, and starting a fire outside his cell.
Recently, Mr. Dorsey vowed to assault staff prior to his execution. He did not follow through on that threat.
"He was executed without incident," said Michelle Lyons, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. "He did not have to be forcibly taken to the execution chamber."
