The Femme Fatal
True Crime - Femme Fatale Style
The Femme Fatal tells the stories of women who commit crimes, blending true crime, pop culture, and astrology to explore power, obsession, and the darker side of femininity.
The Femme Fatal
Pickaxe Killer: Karla Faye Tucker
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On this episode of The Femme Fatal, we dive into Karla Faye Tucker, better known as the pickaxe killer. She went from a life of drugs and violence to becoming one of the most high-profile born-again Christians on death row. But when it came time for her execution, the question wasn’t just about what she did, it was about who she had become.
Karla Faye Tucker: Forevermore Movie
Faye Tucker by The Indigo Girls
INFORMEDISH: Real life. Artificial cohost.Movies, parenting and life's absurdities. Jason and his AI cohost Heather take sides.
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Welcome to the Femme Fatal, a true crime podcast with an astrology twist. I'm your host, Stacey Dotson. Each week I'll be joined by a guest host because this femme fatal prefers not to work alone. Hi, welcome back to the femme fatal. Today I'm gonna be joined again by my husband, Greg. Hello. And he wants to talk about Carla Fay Tucker, the pickaxe killer.
SPEAKER_00And again, I'm trying to keep it local. H town, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You always hear to keep Austin weird. You know, if you go digging around, you can find out Houston's just as weird. So uh Carla Faye Tucker was pretty notorious. She was a female killer. She got notoriety, not for just the crime itself, but she found God in prison and it got a lot of international and national attention. I'll go into the details on that here in a little bit. But as I dug into the story, outside of the fact it's a very gruesome crime and there's some interesting history, the story involves a Ford Ranchero and an El Camino and an Almond Brothers band reference. Oh. So yeah, so it's gonna be, I think it'll be good. Um, so Carla Hay Tucker, she was born on November 18th, uh 1959, and she was sentenced to death for killing two people with a pickaxe that occurred during a burglary. Interestingly, she was the first woman to be executed in the United States since someone named Velma Barfield was executed in 1984. That's a long time. Civil War, right? No, 1984. There's two references. Velma Barfield was the last woman killed in the United States in 1984.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00But Carla Fay was the first one killed in Texas since the Civil War.
SPEAKER_03Okay, first one in Texas since the Civil War. Yeah. I knew something about the Civil War.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, someone named Chapito Rodriguez was executed in 1863, and then Carla spent 14 years on death row, and she was executed in February of 1998. And so I guess 1984, a woman was killed in North Carolina. No other women were killed through capital punishment in America until Carla Fay was in 1998, but no woman had been received capital punishment in Texas since 1863. She had a pretty widely publicized conversion to Christianity. And when she uh became a Christian, she inspired an unusually large national and international movement, and they were all advocating for the commutation of her sentence to life without parole. And then, like celebrities and politicians and foreign government officials actually joined in on that.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00She was born and raised in Houston. Uh, she was the youngest of three sisters, and her father, Larry, was a longshoreman. Her parents had a troubled marriage. Apparently, uh Carla started smoking cigarettes with her sisters when she was eight years old. Uh, parents got divorced, and during the divorce proceedings, she learned that her birth was a result of an extramarital affair.
SPEAKER_03So her dad wasn't her dad.
SPEAKER_00No, and she found out about that when she was 10.
SPEAKER_03Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_00So by age 12, she'd begun taking drugs and having sex. She dropped out of school at age 14 and followed her mother, Carolyn, a rock groupie, into prostitution and began traveling with the Almond Brothers band.
SPEAKER_03She started Carla Faye toured or traveled with the Almond Brothers.
SPEAKER_00With her mom.
SPEAKER_03Or her mom was the groupie.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So she dropped out of school and then followed her mom into prostitution. At 16, she was briefly married to a handyman named Stephen Griffith. Then she began hanging out with bikers and met a woman named Sean Dean. And later on, Sean Dean married Jerry Dean, and no one really knows what Sean's maiden name was. The couple introduced her in 1981 to a man named Daniel Ryan Garrett or Danny. Okay, so this is going to kind of lead into the crime now. Okay. So after spending the weekend using drugs with Garrett and his friends, Tucker and Garrett entered uh Jerry Dean's apartment around 3 a.m. on Monday, June 13th, 1983. And they were going in there to steal a motorcycle. So they went in there to steal a motorcycle that Dean was restoring. Someone named James Librant. Librant? L-I-E-B-R-A-N-D-T. Labyrinth reported that he went looking for Dean's El Camino. There's the El Camino reference. While Tucker and Garrett entered the apartment with a set of keys that Tucker claimed Sean Dean had lost and Tucker had found.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so you're saying these are recounts when the police interviewed them after the crime.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_00During the burglary, Tucker and Garrett entered Dean's bedroom, where apparently Tucker sat on Dean in an effort to protect himself. Dean grabbed Tucker above the elbows, and whereupon Garrett then intervened and struck Dean numerous times in the back of the head with a ball peen hammer that he found on the floor. After hitting Dean, Garin left the room to carry motorcycle parts out of the apartment. And then Tucker remained in the bedroom. The blows Garrett had dealt Dean caused him to begin making a gurgling kind of sound. When the went to court and all that, Carlaface said that she wanted him to stop making that noise. And that's when she picked up the pickaxe and began hitting Dean. And at that point, Garrett then re-entered the room and dealt Dean a final blow in the chest.
SPEAKER_03Do you think that happened to be? And she was super strung out, right? They were all drugged up. Was that a case of misophonia?
SPEAKER_00Do not know what misophonia is.
SPEAKER_03So misophonia is a condition where specific sounds can drive you crazy and trigger intense negative emotional and physical reactions. And it's also known as like selective sound sensitivity syndrome. And people with misophonia experience extreme irritation, rage, or panic, akin to a fight or flight response. Part of me, when I heard that gurgling, she kept saying was making her crazy. I was like, that must be misophonia.
SPEAKER_00It sounds like it, whether you just described it, right? I mean, she couldn't deal with the sound and grabbed a pickaxe and started driving into the dude's chest until Garrett could come in and finish it off and everything. I mean, I didn't see anything in my research that said that she had like a history of this over and over and over again. Oh, yeah. As a child, she had misophonia with this particular sound.
SPEAKER_03Right. Or I mean, but you know, she was strung out, so violent tendencies can happen, and then that was a trigger.
SPEAKER_00You know, I could see how certain sounds can trigger people to, you know, lose their minds. So um, I'm sure the drugs and alcohol probably had a lot to do with that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the drugs and alcohol are probably the big factor there.
SPEAKER_00All right. So after pickaxing Dean, Garrett uh left the bedroom and continued loading motorcycle parts into his Ford Ranchero. So there you are. Almond Brothers, Ford Ranchero, and an El Camino, all in the same story. All right, so uh Tucker was left alone in the room and noticed a woman had been hidden under the bed covers against the wall. And this particular woman was Deborah Ruth Thornton. Apparently, she had had an argument with her husband the day before, went to a party, ended up spending the night in Dean's bed. Ah. Upon discovering Thornton, Tucker grazed her shoulder with the pickaxe. Uh they began to struggle. Garrett came back again, separated them, and then Tucker proceeded to hit Thornton repeatedly with the pickaxe until she embedded the axe into her heart. During the court proceedings, it came out that Tucker experienced uh multiple intense orgasms with each blow of the pickaxe. Wow. Who said that? Tucker.
SPEAKER_03She admits that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. She said she got off on it.
SPEAKER_03Wow. Okay.
SPEAKER_00But this Garrett guy, you know, he's hauls out motorcycle parts, comes in, kills a dude, hauls out motorcycle parts, comes back in, helps kill another person. And then this poor girl, you know. I mean, she's just decisions have consequences. I'm not judging, but you know, she made a bad decision here and ended up in the wrong place at the wrong place.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00After an argument. That's sad, right? You know, you think you come back from an argument.
SPEAKER_03Well, we don't know. Yeah. You know, we don't know the details.
SPEAKER_00No, we don't. And it doesn't, and there's not a whole lot on that part of the story that I could find either. But it's just, I just feel bad for her. The next morning, uh, one of Dean's co-workers, who had been waiting for a ride, entered the apartment and discovered the victims' bodies. And then the police investigation ultimately led to the arrest of Tucker and Garrett about five weeks after the killings happened. And in September of 83, Tucker and Garrett were indicted for murder, but they were tried separately for their crimes. So Tucker was charged with the murders of both Dean and Thornton, but she testified against Garrett during the trial, right? And so the charge for the murder of Thornton was dropped. So they were both charged with murder. Yeah, Tucker was charged with the murders of both Dean and Thornton, but she testified against Garrett, so the murder charge against Thornton was dropped. And remember in the TV movie that's the husband that came to the reporter's house. Right. And, you know, was testifying at in Huntsville and all that. So it was his wife that the charge was dropped against.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so she only was charged for the guy, Dean. Right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Garrett was not charged with Thornton's death either. Tucker entered a plea of not guilty and was jailed awaiting trial soon after being imprisoned.
SPEAKER_03Wait, so no one got jail time or a sentence for the woman?
SPEAKER_00So soon after being in prison, she took a Bible from the prison's ministry program and read it in her cell and was later quoted as recalling that I didn't know what I was reading before I knew it. I was in the middle of my cell floor on my knees. I was just asking God to forgive me. She officially became a Christian in October of 1983. Later got married by proxy to her prison minister, Reverend Dana Lane Brown, in 1995. And had her Christian wedding ceremony inside the prison. Remember, they had her preacher was on one side of the wall and she was on the other one. They like touched hands like Kirk and Spock did when the reactor was melting down on the Enterprise.
SPEAKER_03So no one got charged for the woman. And what happened to him? Like, what did he get? Did he get the death penalty?
SPEAKER_00Uh no, he died from liver disease in 1993 waiting for execution. Yeah, he got the death penalty.
SPEAKER_03Oh, he did get the death penalty. Okay.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, two people were murdered. Right. And then the next morning, one of Dean's co-workers entered the apartment and discovered the victim's bodies. Apparently he was waiting for a ride and got tired of waiting, went in to see where Dean was and found the bodies. The police investigated, of course, and after about five weeks or so, made the arrests for uh Tucker and uh Garrett. Okay. So, anyway, so the murders happened in June of 1983. So we fast forward now to September of 1983, and this is where Tucker and Garrett were indicted for murder, but they were tried separately for their crimes. So Tucker was charged with the murders of both Dean and Thornton, but she testified against Garrett. So the murder charge against Thornton was dropped. Garrett was not charged with Thornton's death either, and I'm not sure why. I'm sure it has like lawyers and plea deals and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00Tucker eventually entered a plea of not guilty and was jailed while she was awaiting her trial. Soon after being imprisoned, she took a Bible from the prison ministry program and read it in her cell. And she is quoted as saying, I don't know what I was reading before I knew it. I was in the middle of my cell floor on my knees. I was just asking God to forgive me. So a month later, in October of 1983, Tucker officially became a Christian. And eventually she got married by proxy to her prison minister.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so I feel like a lot of people find God in prison. You know what I mean? And I don't know. Obviously, there's pastors there that are, you know, praying with them, I guess. I guess he was just around all the time and they met and they fell in love.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean, he was the prison minister, and I'm sure, you know, she found God by reading the Bible. And I'm sure they had many a conversation, spent times praying together, did Bible class together, and a relationship flourished out of it. Yeah. They got married late, though. I mean, she was in prison in 1983, and they got married in 1995.
SPEAKER_03And then she was executed in 98. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so um the ceremony was held in the prison. Even though the death penalty, I guess there's a history of as hardly ever being sought for female killers. Tucker along with Garrett, they were both sentenced to death in late 1984. Garrett died of liver disease, however, in 1993 while on death row. Carla Fay was shared her death row cell at the Mountain View unit with someone named Pam Perillo. Pam's own sentence was eventually commuted.
SPEAKER_03Commuted, so she was on death row as well, right? They don't put do they mix death row prisoners with regular prisoners?
SPEAKER_00They shared a uh cell together at the beginning of it. Between 84 and 92, there were multiple requests for a retrial and appeals, but they were all denied. But on June 22nd, this is in 92, Tucker requested that her life be spared on the basis that she was under the influence of drugs at the time of the murders. She made the argument that she was now reformed. And if she had not taken the drugs, the murders would have never been committed. And so this is where a lot of the national attention starts to come in, right? Okay. And she's like, that was a different
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SPEAKER_00person. It was a lifetime ago. You know, if I hadn't taken the drugs and been the circumstances I was in, it would have never happened. I found God. I'm a, you know, I'm a reformed person.
SPEAKER_03So
(Cont.) Pickaxe Killer: Karla Faye Tucker
SPEAKER_03how is this information getting out? Like media, like people are coming to interview her. Were appeals being filed? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Appeals, uh multiple appeals, and you know, motions for a retrial were filed between 1984 and 1992. And because of the notoriety of the murder, I'm sure every time she brought it up, I'm sure it made the news. Yeah. Especially locally.
SPEAKER_03Right. You know, and so um I remember, you know, vaguely, I was young and not really paying attention to stuff like that, but I do remember it being on the news here.
SPEAKER_00So her pleas drew support from abroad and also uh from some leaders of American conservatives. Among those who were who appealed to the state of Texas on her behalf was somebody named Bakre Wally Nidiaye, N-D-I-A-Y-E N Dye. Uh this person was a United Nations Commissioner on Summary and Arbitrary Executions. The World Council of Churches asked for her to be spared. Pope John Paul II asked for her to be spared. Wow. Uh Italian Prime Minister Romano Pratti. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, came in on it. Pat Robertson, of course, being a televangelist. Ronald Carlson, the brother of Tucker's murder victim, Debbie Thornton, also came out and said she's a reformed person.
SPEAKER_02The brother?
SPEAKER_00The brother of Debbie Thornton lobbied for Carla Fay.
SPEAKER_03I feel bad. It seems like Thornton doesn't have any justice.
SPEAKER_00My own family's saying like her killer is like, eh, you know, she's reformed. It's okay. We forgive her.
SPEAKER_03But it's not like they're gonna let her out of prison. They just think she should get off death row.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that would be my guess here. The warden at the uh Huntsville prison where she was testified that she was a model prisoner and that after 14 years on death row, she likely had been reformed. However, the board rejected her appeal on January twenty-eighth, nineteen ninety-eight, hours before the execution. Texas governor George W. Bush refused the final 11th hour appeal to block her execution. On a side note, apparently the governor of Texas cannot stay the execution of a prisoner. They can only approve the recommendation of the parole board, and that is rarely ever given. You know, the parole board, you know, is probably not going to overrule the court. Capitol cases apparently cannot be freed from prison, but can be commuted to life imprisonment. So that's you know, that's probably what they were going for to save her life. She was never getting out of prison. Right. Interestingly enough, while she was incarcerated at the Mountain View unit in Gatesville, Texas, she became the Texas Department of Criminal Justice death row inmate number 777.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_00Another little godly thing that's come in on all this. On February 3rd, 98, the uh authorities took Tucker from Gatesville and flew her to Huntsville. And for her last meal, she requested a banana, a peach, and a garden salad with ranch dressing.
SPEAKER_03That was her last meal.
SPEAKER_00That was her final meal. She selected four people to watch her die. Okay. Uh her sister Carrie Weeks, or maybe Carrie, K-A-R-I. Um, her husband Dana Brown, who's a minister, right? Close friends Jackie Onkin and Ronald Carlson. At one time, Carlson had supported the execution of his sister's murderer, but after a religious conversion, he also decided that he was now opposed to all executions. The witness for the murder victims included Thornton's husband, Richard, Thornton's only child, William Joseph Davis, and Thornton's stepdaughter, Katie. Tucker's execution was also witnessed by the members of the TDCJ, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Okay, it was like Warden Baggett and various representatives of the media. So these were her final words. Yes, sir. I'd like to say to all of you, the Thornton family and Jerry Dean's family, that I am so sorry. I hope God will give you peace with this. Then she looked at her husband, baby. I love you. Then she looks at Ronald Carlson. Ron give Peggy a hug for me. And she looked at all present weeping and smiling. Everybody has been so good to me. I love all of you very much. I'm going to be face to face with Jesus now. Warden Baggett, thank all of you so much. You have been so good to me. I love all of you very much. I'll see you all when you get there. I will wait for you.
SPEAKER_03I mean, you know, she made peace with what she did, even if you know she doesn't feel like she was in her right mind, and but she made those choices and put the drugs in her body herself too.
SPEAKER_00She was executed by lethal injection on February 3rd, 1998. According to witnesses, as the chemicals were being administered, she praised Jesus Christ, licked her lips, looked up at the ceiling, and hummed. She was pronounced dead at 6 45 p.m. Houston time, eight minutes after receiving the injection. And she's buried at Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery in Houston. That's kind of her story there. I think it's interesting, especially with everything that's going on in the media right now. You know, there's there's people that you know, if you follow the teachings of Jesus, and I I don't, I wasn't brought up that way or anything, but you know, you read about the teachings of Jesus, and it makes it sound like Jesus would probably be anti-capital punishment.
SPEAKER_02I would agree.
SPEAKER_00Maybe Carla Fay did reform and that uh Thornton's brother obviously reformed is willing to forgive his sister's killer.
SPEAKER_03The husband didn't though.
SPEAKER_00No, husband did not. Those people, you know, I think they really did believe. And I think they really were trying to follow, you know, Jesus' example.
SPEAKER_03I do not believe in capital punishment at all. Obviously, I can see someone taking someone I love and being enraged, and I understand that emotion, but I was raised Catholic. So it's like I always think about how thou shalt not kill, right? It's a commandment, and it's the same. They shouldn't kill. But then so we turn around and we kill. That's still killing. And the people that administer the I always think about like their souls. They're the ones doing the lethal injection, and that's just something that I can't wrap my head around my emotions about it. I just know that I don't think it should be done.
SPEAKER_00It's probably in the top five in the categories of crappiest jobs in the world, you know, death row executioners probably would be in the top five.
SPEAKER_03I know, but I mean, I don't think they can be religious. You know, it's like because you would believe that your actions reflect in your next life. And even though you're not doing it out of bad intention, you know, it's your job. You're still doing it. You're still doing it.
SPEAKER_00You know, it's a debate that will go on forever and ever and ever. And it's here. Capital punishment has been around, I think it's the mid-70s in the US. From a federal level, probably around the state level is longer than that. I'm not sure, but um, it's not going away.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it does take a very, very long time. They're not Swift. Capital punishment is not Swift justice. What did you say? She was on death row for 14 years. 14 years? Okay. Well, anyway, let's jump into, and I don't even like using the term pop culture because this is a very sad story. But, you know, I'm just talking more about what's out there media wise. And it shows up in a different way. We watched that movie together. I I always make you watch these movies with me. It's called Crossed Over, and Jennifer Jason Lee plays Carla Faye Tucker. And it's got Diane Keaton in it as an author that the story is very much about Diane Keaton's life. And then she went to meet Carla Fay Tucker, sort of befriended her.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean, her son got ran over by, we think, a drunk driver.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00She kind of loses it and becomes obsessed with death. And I think in the movie they said she wanted to like get to know somebody that knew death, right? Yeah. So that's why she went up to start communicating with uh Carla Faye. And like you said, it became a friendship.
SPEAKER_03It didn't really focus on the crime. It had a couple flashback type scenes, but it did talk a lot of her life and her growing up being a prostitute that young and just I mean, I always like feel like they just never have a chance, some of these people, you know.
SPEAKER_00I think most of them do, as a loving and devoted husband and listening to your podcast every time they come out. Um, there's a common theme epilepsy. Um and the fact that these people just never had a shot from the very beginning.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you grow up hard, you know, you ride hard, and then bad decisions all around. Anyway, so that movie, we watched it on Amazon, I believe. And then there's also a little lesser-known film called Carla Faye Tucker, and it is more about the religious conversion. It focuses more on her finding God and Jesus. But there's also a couple songs. One by the Indigo girls, Faye Tucker, written in 1999. And so that was the year after she was executed, right? Yep. So I'm gonna read you a couple lyrics. You may be reborn, but it's all just for scorn. Well, the minister wants you to live now, and the governor wants you to fry. It's an interesting, folky song. Then there's another song called Carla Fay by Mary Gothier. And I just realized it's kind of like the couple songs that I found are all folky, type female, forward, and folky. The one by Mary Gothier is very much about her spirituality and how there's no compassion now that she was a lost girl and now she's a lost girl again. Let's go to the astrology part. Before we get into her chart, I want to address Pluto because I'm gonna talk about it quite a bit. And even though Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet in astronomy, in astrology, it's still incredibly important. And Pluto represents power, transformation, destruction, and rebirth. The cycles of tearing something down and rebuilding it into something new. Unlike the faster-moving planets, Pluto works on a deep psychological level. It's not about day-to-day personality, it's about the bigger shifts that define a life. So even if science changed its label, astrologically, Pluto is still doing the same job. And in this case, it matters a lot. So Carla Faye Tucker was born on November 18th, 1959, which makes her a Scorpio son. The sun sign is your basic overall personality. Scorpio's son is most associated with extremes, destruction, and rebirth, and very intense emotional experiences. And Scorpio energy doesn't really do anything halfway. They tend to go all in, whether it's into chaos or transformation. And so early on in Carla Fay's life, you see the more chaotic, destructive side with the drug use and the instability and then the violence.
SPEAKER_00Just a little bit of chaotic when you swing a pickaxe into somebody.
SPEAKER_03And that's when obviously the Scorpio is like ungrounded, its shadow qualities. But later in life, you see something very different. Now, Scorpio is ruled by Pluto, okay? And Pluto is the planet of death and rebirth. Well, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So that makes sense because she, you know, was a harbinger of death.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_00Found Jesus and is reborn, right? So uh interesting.
SPEAKER_03So uh obviously not literal death, but the idea of completely shedding one identity and becoming something else. And that's exactly what people associate with Carla Faye Tucker, like her transformation. So her religious conversion while on death row became a defining part of her story. And whether people believe it was genuine or not.
SPEAKER_00Do you think it was genuine?
SPEAKER_03I don't know. I guess yes, with her. It was a long time and she was uneducated. I don't think you said this, but didn't she like have only a school like at age 12? Yeah, like seventh grade education or something, right? And so coming to terms with what she did, she had some kind of spiritual change. And so I believe that she did change. If she had been able to go on with her life, she would have made better decisions and probably do charitable stuff. Don't you think so?
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, I think charitable things in the prison, she was never getting out.
SPEAKER_03Right. But I'm just saying, if she had a different job. It's one of those things we talked about where I mentioned earlier, it's like, uh, I feel like a lot of people find Jesus. So I don't think everybody in prison really has this spiritual awakening.
SPEAKER_00True.
SPEAKER_03Anyway.
SPEAKER_00It's it's it's an interesting debate point, right? I mean, some people use uh religion and spirituality for personal gain, and some people actually truly experience it and are better people for it, and they work to make their friends or neighbors, their community, you know, their country, their city, their whatever better.
SPEAKER_03And I would imagine some people in prison that say they've found God or Jesus, that's something they want to put in their appeal.
SPEAKER_00I get that argument. The heinousness of the crime, right? I mean, if you've been knocking over liquor stores and you're in jail for the third time, and you know, you're lost and you have a good rapport with the chaplain there, and you start studying the Bible and you become a believer, and you eventually get out after starting your time, and you know, you go to work at the church or you go do something beneficial to your community, you see that story happen quite a bit. Yeah, a little bit different when you're drug-fueled, high, pickaxing people, riding around in El Caminos, all kinds of craziness, right? I mean, not to make light of it, which I just did, but I mean, you know. But that's a different animal. Can somebody that's capable of doing that truly repent? I guess they can, but I guess the ultimately is like, can they be saved, right? Can they be saved? We don't know. No one will know.
SPEAKER_03No, I mean, yeah.
SPEAKER_00No one will ever know, right?
SPEAKER_03So she had two lives. She had the life of growing up hard, drugs, prostitution, and then the murder. And then she had a whole nother life. 14 years. You know, she was incarcerated, found Jesus, got married. Like that's two lives. Yeah. I don't know. It's an interesting story. And uh, like you said, we'll never know. Was she truly saved? But it sounds like she was really accepted her fate, and we don't know if she's gonna be forgiven, but we do know that she was asking for it and was sincere.
SPEAKER_00I think she was probably sincere with it.
SPEAKER_03I find it really interesting. I want to know more about the Pope wing, and that's interesting.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty illustrious list of names that was on that there. But then the governor's like, nah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. He wasn't gonna let it happen.
SPEAKER_00He didn't let it happen. And then and again, like I said, apparently they can't overturn the pro board can recommend. And if the pro board's like, no, we're going through with this, then I don't think the governor can overturn it. Cannot stay the execution of a prisoner. They can only approve the recommendation of the pro board. So the pro board had to have come back and said, hey, based on all of what we have here, right? We don't think they need to need to be executed at this point.
SPEAKER_03You always see in like movies and stuff where they're like chasing down the clock, trying to like get the stay of execution, right? So you're saying it can't just be the governor's decision, they're appealing to the parole board, and then the governor according to can say yes or according to where I was getting pulling this stuff, and I was just pulling this stuff off online, right?
SPEAKER_00Uh came across this and said that the governor cannot stay the execution of a prisoner, they can only, you know, approve what the uh parole board recommends. And the parole board very rarely ever goes against the judgment of the court.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I always thought the governor had the ultimate power just to say, hey, take a beat and figure this out.
SPEAKER_00You know, if you're on the parole board and it was a DUI and someone got killed, right? Right, which doesn't make it any less tragic, and you are a model prisoner and you find Jesus and you work with the chaplain, and then you, you know, have advocates like Bill Gates or, you know, Elon or somebody like that. It's like someone with a power to influence.
SPEAKER_03Just leave everybody on the Epstein list off of this. Right.
SPEAKER_00The probably not the best choices there. But um, but you know, influential people in government and social media, perhaps, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think that person has a higher chance of maybe having the parole board change their mind.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_00Get them off death row versus the pickaxe person.
SPEAKER_03I mean, I don't think people if it's a drunk driving accident, I don't think they ever get death row.
SPEAKER_00I know, that's just a bad example, but he's on death row because you killed somebody.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Well, thanks for joining me again.
SPEAKER_00No, I enjoyed it. It was good talking, and uh hopefully uh people will find this interesting. Yeah, it'd be cool to maybe come back and you know, at a future date, not by me, but if anyone's listening to this and they do want to dive deeper into the spirituality and you know how she found religion in prison, that might be an interesting topic.
SPEAKER_03There's a link on the podcast where you can contact me. And if you have any information or if we said anything incorrect, I encourage people to shoot me that email and let me know.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for having me on, babe.
SPEAKER_03Love you, babe. Bye. So, Greg and I have a good friend, Amy, who happened to work in the criminal justice system at the time that all this Carla Faye Tucker media frenzy was about. So I kind of wanted to get a little bit of her perspective. So stick around and listen to what Amy has to say. Hi, Amy. Hi, Sissy. So, our friend Amy, I asked her to come on here and talk about her experience because she was working in the criminal justice system when all of the fight for clemency for Carla Faye was going on. She has a good perspective of, well, I'll let her tell you her perspective. So talk about, I guess, working in the criminal justice system and then working around people that committed violent crimes or terrible crimes.
SPEAKER_01So, yeah, I started working in the pre-sentence investigations unit at 49 San Jacinto in Harris County in 1995, which, you know, was uh a more of an assessment for people who had issues. And this is whenever there was more rehabilitation services offered. Pre-sentence PSI reports would then be submitted to the judges prior to sentencing. It would give recommendations for the person, you know, on all aspects. And also gave the judge a detailed history of where they are coming from.
SPEAKER_03What's a PSI? Sorry.
SPEAKER_01A pre-sentence investigation.
SPEAKER_03Pre-sentence investigation. Sorry, I don't know anything about the criminal justice system.
SPEAKER_01But they used to do that here in Harris County in Texas to give people opportunity to present themselves as the person in front of the judge on paper. And I did that stint. That followed into a promotion with it from within to a courtesy supervision officer. And then when I entered that position, the backlog for probationers having an assigned probation officer for probationers that were moving from out of state and out of county was six months behind. And so I started working on that and got it to two weeks' lag time. So there were some cracks that we try to fill up. But the whole time that whenever I was working on that particular project, call a fate Tucker was all over the news, both in mainstream media and on the religious networks about you know her execution steps up coming.
SPEAKER_03And her request first day of execution. Yes. What is your perspective on all the media attention around her?
SPEAKER_01I think that the attention definitely snowballed into like every area of media back then. My perspective is that she was very good at she had a lot of personal power, which a charisma. And I think that a lot of people were enamored and in amazement at that, and just very mesmerized by that. And I think that that's what carried her through the whole all her coverage of her case was her personal power in this way that she had that charisma and that energy. And to say, on top of that, you know, I found Jesus Christ and my I'm a changed person. You know, it's very believable.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And when I was talking to you before, you were saying something about how you would just see people that committed these violent crimes get probation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So whenever I came on that project for hair scanning for the community supervision test, six months, any type of person who was, if they were a murderer, they were put on probation out of state, they were here in Harris County without a probation officer for six months. So that's a long time to be without any type of community supervision. And so my goal was to fill that gap and create, you know, shorten this time period. That's a half a year. And these people, yeah, there's a lot of people on probation who have murder records. It just, you know, or manslaughter and or it just depends a lot of times throughout the halls. You'd hear in our units that a lot depended on the judge's mood that day before sentencing. There was a lot of people who the scary cases that came across my desk where I would be like, How did they get on probation? This is what two years, you know, deferred adjudication? Really? You know, and then with photos, so cases that came across were, you know, I'd get what the, you know, their probation officer would have in the other counties and other states and parishes. And so it was disturbing.
SPEAKER_03You were looking at this coverage going, why? You know, because she did commit a very, very violent crime.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and it was very beyond a shadow of doubt. There was no room for questioning. So seeing the cases and the people, you know, and then seeing that going on, and then I was like, okay, well, we're obviously seeing a case that she's gonna get the extreme arm of justice handed to her. And once that's set in motion, it's pretty much done deal in the state of Texas. You're not gonna get out of it. Obviously, she did exude a lot of charisma to have that kind of power over so many people. And like I said, the cases of probationers getting the judge on a good day and getting a lesser sentence than they would normally get based on the day. It's interesting. What if she had encountered one of the judges that were like having a really good day and said, Okay, well, we're gonna do this, and then you're gonna 20 years, 25 years, then you'll be on probation or something or parole in that case.
SPEAKER_03So it almost seems like religion kind of clouded or spirituality or born again clouded over the crimes that she committed. And so when you're looking at it, you're looking at it from an on-paper point like this person is dangerous to be out in society. She gave good faith and she's saying all the right words, and she's saying she's a believer now. That just clouded the judgment of people. And it shouldn't have. It should have been looked at just like it was. She committed a violent crime, those people need justice, their families need justice.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and you know, this was not like in the state of Texas, there's this crime of passion law. I don't know if you've heard of this. I did see some cases of crimes of passion where they were on privation.
SPEAKER_03And do you think that's okay?
SPEAKER_01You can get away if you see your spouse in bed in your bed with another person, and you go off and you commit a violent act against either a dog that can fall into the crimes of passion. You can basically get away with that.
SPEAKER_03Now, let me ask you this do you think that law applies more to men or to women than men? Like, you don't, it applies both, it's equal.
SPEAKER_01The case I saw with both men. There's two cases that I saw. There are men who committed crimes of passion, and it was pretty tough seeing, yeah, but I don't know what the law is now at this time. I think it still stands. I don't think it's been changed. But you know, you have that kind of event happening in your home and in your bed with your spouse, crime of passion can apply.
SPEAKER_03But with her, it was fueled by drugs, I believe.
SPEAKER_01A different type of passion.
SPEAKER_03Like you look at yourself and you think, I would hope at my worst I would never have the impulse or the ability to commit that type of crime. And I'll be honest, I don't think most people do. Like most people don't have that.
SPEAKER_01Most people just walk away or do something else, you know, and say, okay. But yeah, the drugs, the upbringing, obviously this mental health of the individual, just a lot of things, the psyche. I think it just plays a big role in a lot for the choices, the reasons why to do the drugs to not feel that pain inside. She definitely had a lot of pain to run from and a lot of issues.
SPEAKER_03But she still did what she did.
SPEAKER_01She did.
SPEAKER_03Overall, when they executed her, when W, as I like to call her, didn't give her this day of execution. You feel like justice was done.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yes, definitely. I, as a taxpaying citizen, when there is zero shadow of doubt, there's no question, you know, which there was no question. That is definitely very valid. I think it brings justice to the unheard victims. It it vindicates them and their life.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, thanks for coming on and sharing your perspective on that. It's uh I don't have any kind of legal experience. So when I get to hear stuff like this, I'm impressed and I'm like, I didn't know what the PSI, is that what it was? Didn't know what that was.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's no longer uh Harris County doesn't do that anymore because they used to do a lot of rehabilitative programs for people who were like soft crime. And then, okay, you go, you do misdemeanor theft. Okay, we're gonna do some counseling for you. They actually try to help people at one point in time, and that was Nancy Platt. And Nancy Platt, well, they rollered her because she was taking money and she was spending money towards the betterment of people, of society, and the powers that be didn't like that. So they don't really have any good rehabilitative programs now in Texas. It changed. I think they still have safety as the substance abuse and preventative programs. I think that they still do, but I think it's very, you know, it's so structured, people don't want to stick with it. You know, they can't come and go safely use like they used to. You know, used to are like, okay, I'm gonna go like a revolving door, and that's why it became so expensive because it was just very the intention was very good.
SPEAKER_03It just wasn't structured.
SPEAKER_01It needed some changes done to it. But I know that they do have programs that still exist, you know, but they're not as thorough. And I think they rely more on medications now, you know, like methadone clinics and you know these different clinics that's just for that one faucet of individual. So but they did invest a lot on trying to prevent people from getting further involved in the their error ways, you know.
SPEAKER_03When did you leave, let's just say, the industry?
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, I had cancer. I was still also dealing with cancer at that time, whenever Carl of Atucker was going through all this. It actually was a little bit of escapism on my end as a viewer, going through what I was going through personally, but it was like, this is so crazy. Why are we even giving her air? Time, you know, this is just ridiculous. And you know, I saw her and she went way overboard into a realm of like it's like I never did anything at all. I thought that was very wrong. It was very wrong. She took away from what she did by saying, Oh, you know, I'm born again and I'm this great person, and I can go help other people going down. No, you can't. No, you need to stay in your lane.
SPEAKER_03Even if she was, she was never gonna get out of prison. She was always gonna be in prison, but obviously she had a life in there. She got married.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that means she had more life than her victim ever had got to do, you know. So I'm glad that George W.
SPEAKER_03W.
SPEAKER_01Love him or hate him, you know, it is what it is, you know. And I think he did write on that one.
SPEAKER_03What I didn't know, the governor apparently he doesn't have the authority to completely change the sentence. He just gives it time. It's a legal pause, if you will, correct?
SPEAKER_01I think it was a 30-day pause that she did get. She did get one before he went ahead and said no. I think so, yeah. It might have been two weeks, but she did get an extension of something before she asked for another pause.
SPEAKER_03Okay. And then he said no.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03He said she was sentenced and redo what the jury said to do, right?
SPEAKER_01Yep, signed and said no. You got a meeting in that room. If he had granted her clemency, I think that that would have set the precedent for more leniency towards those types of crimes. I think the precedent would not have been good.
SPEAKER_03People don't think about that, but that is true. Even though you're looking at a case-by-case basis, you still have to consider precedent. And that I do understand. Because I mean, why would lawyers be quoting precedent all the time in court? And it's just like, was she the one to do that for? Because she came with the media circus, and everybody's gonna find Jesus in prison if she was granted that clemency.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it would have been like, oh, wait, I'm safe now. Did I get a free pass? Not to discredit her her experience or what have you. I'm sure she did have a wake-up and a realization. But do think that she should have stepped away from the line white because it was not gonna help anybody but herself, you know. And I think that she should have just stepped away and said, you know what? Thank you. I've done this and that. I'm gonna go over here and read my Bible, and she didn't make it a fascist. She allowed it to get so big. And I think that she a little bit of humbleness may have made it look more sincere.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Thanks for coming on and sharing your perspective. I really, really appreciate that.
SPEAKER_01I enjoyed talking about it. It was definitely one of one of the most talked-about things here in Houston back in that day, and it it was very distracting.
SPEAKER_03Thanks for listening to the Femme Fatal. And as usual, I will go ahead and link to some of the stuff we mentioned in the description. The Femme Fatal. Created and hosted by Stacy Dotson, produced by Mark Williams, music by Marcia Yingling, Chad Chank, and Greg Loicano.