Death Row Inmate Gouges Own Eye Out, Eats It

Submitted by DC Tedrow | Sat, 01/10/2009 - 05:35

Death row inmate Andre Thomas, who has a history of mental problems, gouged his remaining good eye out and ate it, the AP reported yesterday. Get this: He was declared competent to stand trial in 2004 even after he gouged out his first eye and ate it! (Thanks go to our friend Jayson for sending us the story.)

Thomas was treated at East Texas Medical Center in Tyler after the Dec. 9 incident. Then he was transferred and remains at the Jester Unit, a prison psychiatric facility near Richmond southwest of Houston.

"He will finally be able to receive the mental health care that we had wanted and begged for from day 1," Bobbie Peterson-Cate, Thomas' trial attorney, told the Sherman Herald Democrat. "He is insane and mentally ill. It is exactly the same reason he pulled out the last one."

At his trial, defense lawyers also argued he suffered from alcohol and drug abuse.

Thomas does not have an execution date.

It's unbelievable that people with severe mental problems are still on death row, or in prison at all for that matter.

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