http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/metropolitan/1581312 Former A&M student executed for killing fellow Aggie Associated Press HUNTSVILLE -- A former Texas A&M student was executed today for gunning down another Aggie during a burglary at her home eight years ago. Ron Shamburger confessed to the fatal shooting of Lori Baker, 20, within hours of the attack, which climaxed a series of burglaries he'd been committing in College Station, many of them at homes he'd broken into numerous times. Shamburger sang an old religious hymn and uttered several quotes from the Bible as the lethal drugs were administered. Then he looked at the victim's family and said, "I am really sorry for the pain and sorrow I caused you. I really do not know what to say, but I am sorry ... forgive me." He was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m. CDT, six minutes after receiving the injection lethal drugs. Evidence showed Shamburger used a credit card stolen from Baker's home a few days before the fatal attack to buy the murder weapon, a 9 mm pistol. Shamburger's lawyers went to the U.S. Supreme Court to try to halt the punishment, but the court denied his petition and application for stay of execution. Similar efforts failed Tuesday in the state courts. Shamburger, from Longview, was a 22-year-old fifth-year senior nearing a degree in biomedical science when authorities say he became obsessed with burglaries in which he stole credit cards and cash. On the night of Sept. 30, 1994, he broke into the home of Baker as the Aggie junior slept. She awoke, was bound with duct tape, then was fatally shot in the head. "How do you explain it?" said Bill Turner, the Brazos County district attorney who prosecuted Shamburger. "It's real frightening. "He does look like the boy next door. He does look like the guy you might trust, but there was more to him than that." "I don't know why you do the things you do," Shamburger said recently from death row. "One thing leads to another... You lose touch with reality. You've chosen to do things that are wrong. "There was an adrenaline rush to it -- the satisfaction of not being caught." Baker's roommate, 20-year-old Victoria Kohler, returning home, heard noises from Baker's room and walked in that direction when she was confronted by Shamburger. He abducted Kohler and stuffed her in the trunk of her car, driving her around town before leaving her in the vehicle not far from home. Then he returned to the murder scene, retrieved a can of gasoline from his own car parked outside, cut some of Baker's hair from around her fatal head injury and used a knife to poke at the wound in an unsuccessful search for the bullet. He poured gasoline in the room and over her body and set it ablaze only to discover the keys to his car were inside the burning room. They had fallen from his shirt pocket. Baker's brother, who lived next door, heard the explosion and tried to break windows to get his sister out. Shamburger was in the back yard by then, walking in circles, holding his pistol and repeating: "She's dead." Kohler in the meantime had climbed from the trunk of her car, went to a nearby house and had the people there call 911. Shamburger fled, called a friend, a minister at his church, met him and told him about the killing. They both went to the police station where Shamburger turned himself in to authorities. "In this case, he breaks in with tape, a gun, gasoline," Turner said, explaining why he went for the death penalty although Shamburger had no previous record. "The premeditation, as well as escalation, I thought showed there was no question in my mind he'd be an extreme danger if we hadn't caught him." Shamburger, who had been working in a supermarket, said he used the loot from his burglaries for movies, food and clothing. While taking responsibility for the slaying -- "I can't say I'm here for something I didn't do" -- he said he hoped his victim's family could forgive him. "I think we already have," Faye Baker, the victim's mother, said Tuesday. "We are strong Christians. I believe for my own salvation that I need to forgive him... We don't harbor resentment. It's an absolute miracle that we don't." That doesn't, however, diminish the pain of losing her daughter. "He took the most precious thing in the world away from us and really destroyed our lives," she said. "But we don't think about him." Shamburger, 30, was the 26th Texas inmate executed this year and the second in as many days. Convicted killer Jessie Joe Patrick received lethal injection Tuesday for the 1989 slaying of an 80-year-old Dallas woman. ============================================= For someone with that much education, this sure was one idiotic crime.
I was a student at A&M when that happened. It impacted the student body in a way that many can't imagine. It was horrible. I'm glad that his sentece has been carried out.
Im currently writing a short story in English based on this guy. I'lll send whoever wants a copy one when I get done.
I went to high school with Lori and Victoria. Lori was an extremely nice girl-- very beautiful and popular, and friendly to everyone. I didn't know her well, but I knew her well enough to cry all the way home during the drive to Houston that weekend.
We were all crying Mr. Kagy. There wasn't a dry eye at Silver Taps that month. The news really shook the entire student body. The fact that you knew her made it worse for you personally. For that I sympathize with you.
The Texan had a 2-part piece on this guy in today's paper. They interviewed him and he said that he basically understood the death sentence. Sounds to me like he deserved it.
I don't want to derail this thread by distracting focus from those involved in the tragedy. I only had a peripheral or tangential relation to what happened. But I spent a lot of time thinking about this last night before I finally drifted off to sleep. I was supposed to drive home to Kingwood that weekend to see my parents and my brother. I remember the phone ringing really early that Saturday morning-- my mother called, asking if I knew a "Lori Ann Baker". Well, a, it was 7:00 in the morning, and b, Lori didn't go by "Lori Ann" when I knew her-- that was how the paper referred to her-- so I sleepily said, "No. Why?" My mother then asked, "Didn't you know a Victoria Kohler?" My heart just about stopped. I knew Victoria fairly well when we were seniors in high school-- we had a couple classes together and she dated a good friend of mine. She was easily the prettiest girl at Kingwood High School, and she was also one of the smartest and funniest. She was one of those people you meet that you end up wishing you'd known all along. I didn't keep in touch with her in college, so I hadn't spoken to her in almost three years at that point. My mother explained that she'd read in the Chronicle that the two girls had been attacked. I fairly dashed down to the lobby to pick up my copy of the Chronicle, and there it was in black and white. Lori was dead. Victoria was, by grace of God, alive. I didn't know what else to do, so I went ahead and packed a bag and jumped in the car to drive down to Houston. I thought about a lot of things during the drive-- the finality of death, and the way you take friendships for granted as though you can always pick them back up later, and the terror those girls must have felt, and a raw visceral anger at the monster who'd killed Lori. I cried. I didn't think I'd stop crying, for a while. Staring down the road, I thought of how many times I'd made the drive between Houston and Austin, and how excited it always made me to realize I was an adult now. And I thought how Lori and Victoria had probably felt the same way the first time they'd driven to College Station, having no idea how it was going to turn out. At the time, I couldn't wait until the day they caught and executed the killer. I feel a lot differently about the death penalty now; the triumphant closure that I was sure in 1994 I'd feel after the killer's execution didn't come when I read the news in 2002. I just feel emptiness when I think of it now. The whole thing was so damned stupid, such a waste of human life and potential. It's clicheed to speak glowingly of the victims of crimes like this, but it's entirely appropriate. Lori was a kind, beautiful young woman. The fact that she's gone is completely unfair. It doesn't make me feel any better that her killer's dead, too. It just makes me wonder what fate had in store for him after death. And what it had in store for Lori. And the rest of us, too.
I also went to high school with Lori and can confirm BK's description of her. Not only was she popular, but she lacked the pretentiousness that many of our peers at Kingwood had. It was a damn shame that such a decent and intelligent person had to die that young and in such a senseless, terrible way.
Finally TDCJ put up Shamburger's last meal request and last statement. Meal: Nachos with chili and cheese, one bowl of sliced jalapenos, one bowl of picante sauce, two large onions (sliced and grilled), tacos (with fresh tomatoes, lettuce, and cheese), and toasted corn tortilla shells Statement: http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/shamburgerronlast.htm
At first, I didn't see the date and thought this was a response to this thread and thought "damn, that's an overreaction".
I suspect that finding a copy of an English paper from 10 years ago is a longshot anyway. However, I'm hopeful....
