HOUSTON — A Texas man faces execution Thursday for killing his girlfriend’s 13-month-old daughter throughout a torturous ordeal the couple stated was a part of an “exorcism” to expel a demon from the kid’s physique.
Blaine Milam, 35, was condemned for the December 2008 homicide of Amora Carson at his trailer in Rusk County in East Texas.
Milam was scheduled to obtain a deadly injection Thursday night on the state penitentiary in Huntsville. At across the similar time Milam was to be put to demise, authorities in Alabama had been planning to execute Geoffrey West for fatally taking pictures a fuel station worker throughout a 1997 theft.
Milam has claimed he’s harmless, blaming then-girlfriend Jesseca Carson for the killing and alleging she was the one who claimed the woman was possessed by a demon. She was tried individually from Milam and sentenced to life in jail with out the opportunity of parole after being convicted of capital homicide for serving to Milam. Each had been 18 on the time.
Prosecutors stated Milam savagely beat the woman with a hammer and likewise bit, strangled, and mutilated her over a interval of 30 hours.
A forensic pathologist who carried out an post-mortem discovered the kid had a number of cranium fractures together with damaged arms, legs, ribs and quite a few chunk marks. The pathologist testified at trial that he couldn’t decide a particular explanation for demise as a result of the woman had so many probably deadly accidents.
Milam’s attorneys have requested the U.S. Supreme Courtroom to cease his execution, arguing his conviction was primarily based partly on “now-discredited” chunk mark proof in addition to different unreliable DNA proof. Milam’s attorneys additionally argued he’s intellectually disabled and due to this fact ineligible for execution.
Of their petition to the Supreme Courtroom, Milam’s legal professionals alleged Carson had skilled spiritual delusions and suffered from a neurological visual-perception dysfunction that triggered her to see malevolent-seeming distortions in her daughter’s face, inflicting her to assault the kid.
“It was Carson who triggered her daughter’s demise. There isn’t a credible proof that Milam performed any position in it.,” Milam’s legal professionals stated.
State and federal appeals courts have beforehand turned down efforts by Milam’s attorneys to remain his execution. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Tuesday denied Milam’s request to commute his demise sentence to a lesser penalty. Milam’s beforehand had executions dates in 2019 and 2021 that had been stayed.
The Texas Legal professional Normal’s Workplace has stated Milam’s claims that he’s intellectually disabled have been rejected in earlier courtroom rulings and a latest assessment of DNA proof used at his trial “continues to forensically tie him to Amora’s physique.”
The lawyer normal’s workplace additionally stated in courtroom paperwork that even when bitemark and DNA proof had been excluded, there was different proof pointing to his guilt, together with his efforts to cover proof and a confession he made to a nurse after his arrest.
Rusk County District Legal professional Micheal Jimerson, who tried the case together with the Texas Legal professional Normal’s Workplace, informed The Related Press in 2019 that authorities initially handled Milam and Carson as grieving mother and father.
However Carson later informed investigators Milam informed her Amora was “possessed by a demon” as a result of “God was uninterested in her mendacity to Milam,” in line with courtroom information.
The usage of chunk mark proof has been known as into query lately, with a 2016 report by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Know-how saying bitemark evaluation “is clearly scientifically unreliable at current.”
Jimerson stated he nonetheless could not pinpoint a motive, believing the exorcism declare was only a approach for Milam and Carson to cowl up their crime.
“It’s … very arduous to confront the concept that somebody would derive their gratification from the torture of a child. That’s actually one thing that diminishes all of us and it’s only a very, very arduous factor to face,” Jimerson had stated.
If the execution is carried out, Milam can be the fifth individual put to demise this yr in Texas, traditionally the nation’s busiest capital punishment state. If each of Thursdays executions happen, that will carry this yr’s complete to 33 demise sentences carried out nationwide. Florida leads the nation this yr with a file 12 executions performed to this point in 2025 with two extra scheduled within the state by mid-October.
___
Comply with Juan A. Lozano: https://x.com/juanlozano70
