Texas death row inmate mouths final 2-word message to victims’ families before execution

A remorseful death row inmate pleaded for forgiveness and mouthed one final message before being put to death in Texas Thursday, 20 years after he killed his strip club manager and another man.

Richard Lee Tabler, 46, also admitted to killing two teenage dancers at the club and said he had found God during his two decades in prison.

“I had no right to take your loved ones from you, and I ask and pray, hope and pray, that one day you find it in your hearts to forgive me for those actions,” Tabler said strapped to the death chamber gurney, looking at relatives of his victims who watched through a window a few feet away. “No amount of my apologies will ever return them to you.”

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He told the victims’ family members that there wasn’t a day that went by in which he didn’t regret his actions and thanked prison officials for their compassion and show that he could “change and become a better man and rehabilitate.”

After apologizing several more times, Tabler said that it was the beginning of a new life for him in heaven.

He told the warden at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, “I am finished,” and as the drugs began pouring into his body he mouthed once again, “I’m sorry.”

Tabler then began breathing quickly. After about a dozen breaths, all movement stopped.

Tabler shot and killed Mohammed-Amine Rahmouni, 28, and Haitham Zayed, 25, in a remote area near Killeen in Central Texas on Thanksgiving 2004 after luring them there on the false pretense of buying stolen stereo equipment.

Rahmouni was the co-owner of a club called TeaZers and the two had fallen out.

Investigators said Rahmouni allegedly said he could have Tabler’s family “wiped out” for $10.

Two days later, Tabler shot and killed an 18-year-old dancer at the club, Tiffany Loraine Dotson, who he said he had been seeing, along with another dancer, 16-year-old Amanda Benefield.

Tabler was convicted of killing the two men and sentenced to death, so prosecutors didn’t need to pursue the conviction for the young women’s murders, Paul McWilliams, who prosecuted Tabler nearly two decades ago, told USA Today.

“The murder of the men was as cold-blooded as it could be,” McWilliams said. “The killing of the girls was just senseless. There was absolutely no reason for that.”

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Dotson’s father, George, was among the witnesses. He declined to comment on Tabler’s apologies, saying he needed time to process what he had just seen but was glad to have seen it.

“I couldn’t wait,” he said. “It took me 20 years to get here.”

“Today is for Tiffany,” said her godfather, Tom Newton. “And this is justice.”

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During the sentencing phase of his trial, prosecutors introduced Tabler’s written and videotaped statements saying he killed Dotson and Benefield because he was worried they would tell people he had killed the men.

Tabler had asked several times for courts to stop his appeals and let him be executed. His lawyers questioned whether he was mentally competent.

In 2008, he prompted a massive lockdown at the 150,000-inmate prison when he smuggled a cell phone into the facility and began making death-threat phone calls to then-state Sen. John Whitmire, who is now the mayor of Houston.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.