Execution accounts are type transcriptions of actual newspaper articles that covered the inmate's execution. In order to maintain accurate historical context of the time period when the articles were written, the language used in them has not been changed.


September 27:    

 1953 - Huntsville Unit (Walls) - A Huntsville couple was startled Sunday to look up and see the state prison's parachuting convict sitting on the roof of their frame home.  "I missed it," Barney Thurman explained and pointed to the prison rodeo arena 300 yards away, "but I'll make it next Sunday."  Thurman, a World War II paratrooper serving three years on a forgery conviction from Gregg County, is a feature attraction of the annual prison rodeo opening next Sunday.  At the close of each performance, he is scheduled to parachute from a plane and land inside the arena - an enclosure about a block long and half a block wide.  Sunday was to be the test jump to gain final approval from the Civil Aeronautic Administration officials and from the prison staff.  "The shroud lines of my chute got twisted and I had lost too much altitude by the time I got them untangled," the trustee explained after prison guards borrowed a ladder and let him off the roof.   R. A. Rownsteen of Houston, CAA district supervisor, gave his permission for the jumps and said Thurman made a "wonderful" recovery from the twisted chute.  State prison system manager O. B. Ellis also gave his permission for the performances, adding that he had become "very interested" in Thurman and his efforts at rehabilitation.  Thurman is a veteran of about fifty jumps but had not jumped for about two years until another test jump last Sunday at the Huntsville airport.  "I'll hit that arena from now on, "Thurman promised.  "I got it figured now." (AP Dallas Morning News. September 28, 1953)