Texas is set to carry out the execution of Ker’Sean Ramey on Wednesday, making him the second man put to death for the 2005 murders of three people during a botched robbery at a rural home in Edna, a small city roughly 100 miles southwest of Houston.
Ramey, 41, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. His execution would mark the sixth carried out in Texas this year, with three more still on the calendar.
A jury convicted Ramey of capital murder for the fatal shootings of Samuel Roberts, 24, Tiffani Peacock, 18, and Celso Lopez, 38. The three victims shared a home in Edna and were killed when Ramey and his co-defendant, LeJames Norman, broke in believing cocaine was hidden inside. No drugs were found, and all three residents were shot dead.
Lopez was struck four times, including three shots to the back of his head. Peacock was shot twice in the head, and Roberts was shot five times in the chest, neck, and head.
Norman, who lived across the street from the victims, was executed on September 16 at the same Huntsville facility. He offered no final words, and no relatives or friends of the victims attended his execution.
Norman had testified at Ramey’s trial that both men participated in the shootings. Ramey’s defense attorneys countered by placing the blame entirely on Norman.
Approximately one year after testifying against Ramey, Norman pleaded guilty to capital murder and was also sentenced to death by a jury.
Attorneys for Ramey filed a last-minute appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that no physical evidence directly tied their client to the killings. They also contended that jurors were never informed about Ramey’s childhood history of physical abuse and poverty, factors they argue should have been weighed during sentencing.
Prosecutors pushed back against the appeal, telling lower courts that Ramey raised no new issues that would justify overturning his conviction or sentence.
The case drew renewed attention last week following Norman’s execution, which proceeded without any public statement from the condemned man and without victim family members present to witness the event.
Texas remains one of the most active states in the country when it comes to carrying out capital punishment, and Ramey’s scheduled execution continues a stretch of lethal injections that began earlier this year.