Local News

Mansfield Killer Loses Federal Court Appeal

HOUSTON (AP / CBS 11 NEWS) ― A Tarrant County man who confessed to killing five relatives has lost a federal court appeal of his conviction for fatally shooting his two stepchildren while they slept.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling upholds the conviction of Terry Lee Hankins and moves him a step closer to execution for the 2001 slayings of Kevin Galley, 12, and Ashley Mason, 11. Their bodies, and the body of their mother, 34-year-old Tammy Hankins, were found in their mobile home in Mansfield, about 20 miles southeast of Fort Worth.

After Hankins was arrested in August 2001, he told police where to find the decomposing bodies of his father and half-sister, with whom he had a child and was expecting another. He said he fatally shot Earnie Hankins, 55, and bludgeoned Pearl "Sissy" Sevenstar, 20, in the fall of 2000.

According to court documents, he lied about his sister's whereabouts, saying he had sent her to a home for pregnant mentally-challenged women. However, he had stored her body in a plastic ice chest, then hid it in a car at his father's auto shop.

Court documents also said he told people his father had moved out of state "when in fact his father's mummified remains were in his trailer surrounded by air fresheners."

"The gruesome facts adduced in this case will not be recounted here in full," the 5th Circuit opinion, posted late Friday, said. "Suffice it to say, the state produced overwhelming evidence at the guilt phase of the trial establishing that (Hankins) killed his wife ... and her two children. ... There was also evidence that (Hankins) engaged in sexual activity with and around the dead bodies."

In his appeal, Hankins, 33, who worked as an auto mechanic in Arlington, argued he should be allowed to pursue appeals that his legal help at his trial was deficient for failing to adequately show the jury of his abusive childhood. His appeal also sought what's known as a certificate of appealability to raise questions about jury instructions, trial procedures related to mitigating evidence and the legality of the state's lethal injection process.

The New Orleans-based court rejected all the claims.

In a diary police found after Hankins' arrest, he wrote that he had become a "non-caring monster" and rambled about his troubled childhood with a divorced, inattentive father and two stepmothers who molested him and taught him sex acts.

He was tried only on the deaths of his two stepchildren, who were shot in the head while they slept. A Tarrant County jury deliberated less than 30 minutes before convicting him then deliberated less than 50 minutes before deciding on the death penalty.

At his trial, defense attorneys had argued for a life sentence although they acknowledged afterward the evidence made the death penalty a foregone conclusion.

In its ruling, the 5th Circuit said sufficient mitigating evidence detailing Hankins' abusive childhood was presented at his trial and "that additional evidence on these issues would not have made a difference."

The court also said if his lawyers had called on Hankins to testify "it would have opened him up to damaging cross examination about his numerous, revolting violent criminal acts."

Hankins was arrested a day after the bodies of his wife and stepchildren were found. He had held off police for four hours in a standoff at his girlfriend's apartment in Arlington. After his arrest, he told authorities about his stepsister, who had been killed 10 months earlier.

Hankins does not have an execution date.

Texas, which operates the country's most active execution chamber, has executed eight inmates this year, the most recent on August 14.  12 executions are currently scheduled for the remainder of 2008.

(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

---