A Texas man who once escaped from custody and spent three days on the run after being sentenced to death nearly three decades ago was scheduled to become the first person executed in the United States this year.
Charles Victor Thompson, 55, was set to receive a lethal injection on Wednesday evening at the Huntsville Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, following his conviction for the fatal shooting of his former girlfriend and her new partner in 1998.
If carried out, the execution would mark the first in the U.S. this year, as capital punishment continues to draw renewed national attention amid ongoing legal and ethical debates.
1998 Double Murder in Texas Suburb
Thompson was convicted for the April 1998 killings of Glenda Dennise Hayslip, 39, and her boyfriend Darren Keith Cain, 30, at Hayslip’s apartment in Tomball, a suburb north of Houston.
Prosecutors said Thompson and Hayslip had been in a romantic relationship for about a year before she ended it.
According to court filings, the relationship deteriorated after Thompson “became increasingly possessive, jealous and abusive.”
At around 3 a.m. on the night of the shootings, Thompson arrived at Hayslip’s apartment, where an argument broke out between him and Cain. Police were called to the scene and ordered Thompson to leave the apartment complex.
Authorities said Thompson returned approximately three hours later and opened fire, shooting both victims. Cain died at the scene, while Hayslip was critically wounded and later died in hospital a week after the attack.
Families Say Justice Has Been Long Delayed
Prosecutors with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office said the victims’ families have endured decades of legal delays.
“The Hayslip and Cain families have waited over twenty-five years for justice to occur,” prosecutors stated in court filings.
Legal Challenge Focused on Cause of Death
In a final effort to halt the execution, Thompson’s attorneys petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay, arguing he was denied the opportunity to challenge the prosecution’s medical evidence.
Defense lawyers claimed Hayslip did not die directly from the gunshot wound but from complications related to medical treatment after the shooting.
They argued that flawed medical care — including a failed intubation — caused oxygen deprivation that led to severe brain damage and ultimately her death.
“If he had been able to raise a reasonable doubt as to the cause of Ms. Hayslip’s death, he would not be guilty of capital murder,” Thompson’s attorneys wrote in Supreme Court filings.
Prosecutors countered that the argument had already been reviewed and rejected by a jury, which concluded under Texas law that Hayslip’s death “would not have occurred but for his conduct.”
A separate civil lawsuit filed by Hayslip’s family against one of her doctors, alleging medical negligence, also failed. In 2002, a jury ruled in favor of the physician.
Prior Death Sentence and Dramatic Jail Escape
Thompson’s legal history includes one of the most unusual escape cases in Texas death row history.
After his original death sentence was overturned, a new punishment trial was held in November 2005. A jury again sentenced him to death by lethal injection.
Shortly after being resentenced, Thompson escaped from the Harris County Jail in Houston by walking out the front door largely unchallenged.
In a 2005 interview with The Associated Press, Thompson said he slipped out of his handcuffs after meeting with his attorney in an unlocked interview room, removed his orange jail uniform, and used a makeshift ID badge created from a prison card to pass multiple deputies.
Reflecting on the three days he spent on the run, Thompson told the AP:
“I got to smell the trees, feel the wind in my hair, grass under my feet, see the stars at night. It took me straight back to childhood being outside on a summer night.”
He was arrested days later in Shreveport, Louisiana, while attempting to arrange overseas wire transfers to help him flee to Canada.
Clemency Denied as Execution Nears
Earlier this week, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Thompson’s request to commute his death sentence to a lesser punishment, clearing the way for the execution to proceed.
Texas remains the state with the highest number of executions in modern U.S. history, although in 2025, Florida carried out the most executions nationwide, with 19.
If Thompson’s execution is carried out as scheduled, it will mark the first execution in the United States this year, placing renewed focus on the country’s continued use of capital punishment nearly three decades after the crime was committed.
