His lawyers say in March 2004, when he was 21, Thomas’ mental illness erupted in a burst of horrific violence in his hometown of Sherman, Texas. He fatally stabbed his estranged wife Laura Christine Boren, 20, their 4-year-old son Andre Lee and her 13-month-old daughter Leyha Marie Hughes, cutting out the hearts of the two children. He later told police God had instructed him to commit the killings and that he believed all three were demons.
“We are united in our conviction that it would be a senseless act of vengeance,” Rev. Dr. Jaime Kowlessar, senior pastor of Dallas City Temple, said during a news conference Wednesday. “The answer to violence is never more violence.”
Since his initial arrest in 2004 for the stabbing deaths of his estranged wife, Laura Boren, 20; their 4-year-old son, Andre Jr.; and her 1-year-old daughter, Leyha Hughes, Thomas has gouged out both his eyes. He immediately confessed to the murders and told investigators God had told him to carry out the killings. He was found guilty the following year in the youngest child’s death, which carries an automatic death sentence.
“Andre Thomas is one of the most mentally ill prisoners in Texas history. Only the most mentally ill person could undertake these acts of permanent self-mutilation,” Maurie Levine, his attorney, said Wednesday. “If ever there was a case that warranted mercy, it is this one.”
Thomas has experienced mental illness his entire life and has been treated with medication while in prison.?
Plagued by mental illness, Texas death row inmate Andre Thomas started hearing voices when he was 9 years old and first attempted suicide when he was 10, his attorneys say.
Thomas’ psychosis, filled with religious delusions and hallucinations, became worse as he grew older. His family — beset by a long history of mental illness, addiction and poverty — was unable to help.
Thomas was sentenced to death for killing the little girl after jurors rejected his insanity defense. Prosecutors argued that he knew his conduct was wrong and exacerbated his mental condition with drug use. He has spent the last 15 years at a unit south of Houston for the state’s most mentally ill prisoners. The heavily medicated Thomas, now 39, is also blind. Twice since the killings, he has gouged out his eyes, eating one of them to ensure that the government could not hear his thoughts, his attorneys said.
A day before the murders, Thomas sought help at a local hospital for his delusions. The intake form noted that he appeared psychotic and suicidal. He was left alone, and, believing that no one was helping him, he left the hospital.
Last October, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a request to consider an appeal of Thomas’ conviction, in which his lawyers argued that members of the jury that convicted him of killing his wife and two children had expressed racist views.
Thomas’ appellate lawyers had argued that three members of the all-white jury — which found Thomas, who is Black, guilty — had expressed opposition to interracial marriage. His wife was white. Thomas’ trial lawyer did not object to the jurors at the time.
Five days after the murders, while awaiting trial in the Grayson County jail, he gouged out his right eye. After he was sent to state prison, he gouged out his remaining eye and ate it.
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