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| Texas Death Row Inmate Dies of Pneumonia |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 10/28/2002 |
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A longtime Texas death row inmate has died of pneumonia at a Galveston hospital after collapsing in July just weeks before a new sentencing hearing, prison officials said recently. Jim Vanderbilt, 49, a former Amarillo police officer, was convicted in 1976 of capital murder for abducting and killing the 16-year-old daughter of former state Rep. Hudson Moyer of Amarillo. He died October 17. Vanderbilt had been on death row since Dec. 1, 1976. Only three other currently condemned inmates have been there longer, and only 10 others have been on death row since the 1970s. 'The case had taken all kinds of twists and turns over the last 25 years and this was just the last and most bizarre twist,' special prosecutor Douglas M. Barlow said recently. 'This is the absolute one thing that no one had any control over.' Authorities said in April 1975 Vanderbilt forced his way into Katina Moyer's car not far from Palo Duro High School, where the girl was supposed to pick up her mother Nancy, who worked as a teacher at the school. Vanderbilt had been fired from his job as a probationary officer for allegedly striking a traffic violator with a flashlight days before he abducted Moyer, whom he was convicted of shooting in the head in a remote area six miles north of Amarillo. The girl's body was found a day later by a sheriff's deputy. A Potter County jury sentenced Vanderbilt to death. However, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals later reversed the conviction, ruling the trial judge should have allowed additional evidence about an oral confession. Because of extensive news coverage of the case, which was one of the most highly publicized in the Texas Panhandle, it was moved to Beaumont where in 1979 a Jefferson County jury again convicted Vanderbilt and sentenced him to die. However, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the death sentence in June 1993 and ordered a new trial on punishment only. Lawyers were ready to begin the punishment trial, which was scheduled to begin July 21, when Vanderbilt collapsed while exercising the morning of July 8 at the Jefferson County lockup. Barlow said attorneys for both sides had even told the court that they were all in good health and ready to go. A Beaumont judge had ordered Vanderbilt back to Jefferson County in January for the sentencing trial. Vanderbilt spent time exercising each day and hoped the new sentencing trial would come out in his favor, his attorney Sonny Cribbs said recently. Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said prison officials were told about Vanderbilt's apparent stroke but have not received any medical documentation from the county to show what happened. Once returned to the Polunsky Unit in Livingston on July 25, Vanderbilt underwent constant medical care and was transported back and forth between the unit where condemned inmates are housed and the Galveston hospital, where the most severely ill inmates are treated. When it was determined Vanderbilt was 'quite ill' on October 17 he was again transported from the Polunsky Unit back to the Galveston Hospital, where he died at 9:39 p.m., Lyons said. |
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