Texas Inmate Uses Final Words to Thank Death Row 'Brothers'

Ker'Sean Ramey used his final moments not to protest his fate, but to talk to the men he was leaving behind on Texas' death row. The 41-year-old, convicted of murdering three people in a 2005 drug-motivated home invasion in Edna, Texas, was executed by lethal injection Wednesday evening at the state prison in Huntsville and pronounced dead at 6:34pm, reports the AP. After a chaplain prayed with him, Ramey addressed "the brothers on Texas death row that grew up with me," thanking them for "show[ing] what it means to be a man, because I came in young, and didn't understand what manhood was ... to you brothers ... I greatly appreciate you." He also thanked his family and friends, per Fox News.

Ramey was the sixth person executed in Texas this year; three more executions are scheduled in the next two months. He and accomplice LeJames Norman—executed last week—believed cocaine was stashed at the victims' apartment, according to court records. Finding none, they fatally shot residents Samuel Roberts, 24, Tiffani Peacock, 18, and Celso Lopez, 38, with Ramey returning to fire additional shots to ensure the victims were dead. Hours before the execution, the US Supreme Court rejected his final appeal, in which his attorneys argued jurors never heard mitigating evidence about his abusive and impoverished childhood.