TEXAS LAST MEAL
JAMES COLLIER
December 11, 2002

You can't always get what you want. No, really, you can't....

Last meals: Collier REQUESTED 30 jumbo shrimp with cocktail sauce, a baked potato, French fries, a T-bone steak, a chocolate malt, one gallon of vanilla ice cream and three cans of Big Red soda. He was GIVEN fried fish, chicken fried steak, baked potato and ice cream.

The skinny: James Collier was executed for shooting to death a mother and her son in misdirected rage. Mrs. Reed was visiting her son when a man
walked into the house with a rifle and began shooting. Collier apparently was enraged by one of Timothy Reed's roommates, Phillip Hoepfner, who was married to Collier's ex-wife.

Priors: Collier had served prison time for a number of other convictions before the murders, including the assault of carhop at a Sonic when he found out there was no salt in his bag.

"He beat the dog out of that boy," District Attorney Barry Macha said. "The kid testified during the punishment phase of the trial. He was 15, 16 years old and Collier was in his 40s."

Macha said there were numerous examples of Collier's extremely violent nature.

"We had another man testify during the penalty about an incident that wasn't tried from 1994, when Collier struck this guy in the face with a beer bottle," he said. "It took 380 stitches to close the gashes on his face. At one point in the 1980s (1987), his mother took out a restraining order against him. His own mother."

Final statement and the such: "The only thing I want to say is that I appreciate the hospitality you guys have shown me and the respect. And the last meal was really good. That is about it. Thank you guys for being there and giving me a little bit of spiritual guidance and support."

Factoids: Collier represented himself during his trial.

Collier was the 33rd convicted killer to have his execution carried out this year in Texas.

It also was the final execution scheduled for 2002 in Huntsville.

Texas has carried out 289 executions since resuming capital punishment in 1982.

Working overtime at DME: At least 14 executions are scheduled in Texas during the first three months of 2003.