Death row inmate makes chilling final request to victim's family after he set elderly woman on fire
Callum Jones
Featured Image Credit: Texas Department of Corrections
A death row inmate issued a chilling final request to his victim's family shortly before he was executed earlier this week (May 20).
Matthew Lee Johnson was sentenced to death after he splashed 76-year-old Nancy Harris with lighter fluid and set her on fire during a robbery at a convenience store in Texas back in 2012.
Court documents state Johnson had poured the lighter fluid on Harris before insisting she open the till.
The death row inmate set her alight before fleeing. Harris - a mother and grandmother - was rushed to hospital and sadly died a few hours later.
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Johnson was detained a short time afterwards, admitting to the crime but claiming he did not mean to cause harm.
The suspect said that he used the lighter fluid to intimidate Harris and had been under the influence of substances.
Johnson died by lethal injection on Tuesday (May 20), some 13 years after he committed the crime.
Just moments before his execution this week, Johnson turned to Harris' family - who were watching through a window just feet away - asking for forgiveness.
He said: "As I look at each one of you, I can see her on that day. I please ask for your forgiveness. I never meant to hurt her.
“I pray that she’s the first person I see when I open my eyes and I spend eternity with. I made wrong choices, I’ve made wrong decisions, and now I pay the consequences."
In his 2013 trial, Johnson called himself the 'lowest scum of the earth'.
“I hurt an innocent woman. I took a human being’s life. I was the cause of that. It was not my intentions to - to kill her or to hurt her, but I did,” the death row inmate said.
Johnson filed a number of appeals regarding his conviction during his time on death row in Texas, but all of them were ultimately unsuccessful.
Prior to his death, Johnson apologised to his wife and daughters for 'giving up', saying: "Just know that it’s nothing that y’all did. I made wrong choices, I’ve made wrong decisions, and now I pay the consequences.
"I thank the Lord for the last 13 years. He has given me the opportunity to ask for his forgiveness, and I thank him for his redemption.
"Welcome me father, thank each and everyone of you for being here. I’m done, Warden.”
He also thanked prison staff 'for helping me and treating me like a man and treating me with fairness and giving me the opportunity to get in right standings with my Lord'.