Execution Halted for Man who Killed 2 Henderson County Deputies

ATHENS — An East Texas man scheduled to be executed by the state on Oct. 16th has had his execution delayed to allow his mental state to be evaluated. Randall Wayne Mays was set to die for the murder of two Henderson County deputies. During a disturbance call back in May of 2008, May’s shot 3 deputies, killing Officers Paul Habelt and Tony Ogburn. Mays’ attorneys filed a motion to find him unable to be executed because he has recently been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Mays does not believe he is being put to death for the murders of the deputies, but rather because he has a renewable energy design that threatens oil companies. The U.S. Supreme Court has a standing precedent that those being executed must know that they are about to be put to death and why. Judge Joe Clayton wrote that he was withdrawing the death warrant to “properly review all medical records submitted.” Mays was originally scheduled to die back in 2015, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stopped it to review competency. Judge Clayton found him competent enough to be executed, however that has changed because Mays’ schizophrenia was not diagnosed until 2018. Mays told a forensic psychiatrist that the guards were poisoning the air vents.