Man facing execution for fatally beating 13-month-old girl during ‘exorcism’

HOUSTON (AP):

A Texas man faced execution Thursday for killing his girlfriend’s 13-month-old daughter during a torturous ordeal the couple said was part of an “exorcism” to expel a demon from the child’s body.

Blaine Milam, 35, was condemned for the December 2008 murder of Amora Carson at his trailer in Rusk County in East Texas.

Milam was scheduled to receive a lethal injection Thursday evening at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. At around the same time, authorities in Alabama were planning to execute Geoffrey West for fatally shooting a gas station employee during a 1997 robbery.

Milam has claimed he is innocent, blaming then-girlfriend Jesseca Carson for the killing and alleging she was the one who claimed the girl was possessed by a demon. She was tried separately from Milam and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after being convicted of capital murder for helping Milam. Both were 18 at the time.

Prosecutors said Milam savagely beat the girl with a hammer and also bit, strangled, and mutilated her over a period of 30 hours.

A forensic pathologist who performed an autopsy found the child had multiple skull fractures along with broken arms, legs, ribs and numerous bite marks. The pathologist testified at trial that he could not determine a specific cause of death because the girl had so many potentially fatal injuries.

Less than six hours before the scheduled 6 p.m. CDT execution, the US Supreme Court issued an order that rejected all of Milam’s appeals to block the execution from proceeding.

Milam’s attorneys had asked the US Supreme Court to stop his execution, arguing his conviction was based in part on “now-discredited” bite mark evidence as well as other unreliable DNA evidence. Milam’s attorneys also argued he is intellectually disabled and therefore ineligible for execution.

In their petition to the Supreme Court, Milam’s lawyers alleged Carson had experienced religious delusions and suffered from a neurological visual-perception disorder that caused her to see malevolent-seeming distortions in her daughter’s face, causing her to attack the child.

“It was Carson who caused her daughter’s death. There is no credible evidence that Milam played any role in it.,” Milam’s lawyers said.

REQUEST DENIED

State and federal appeals courts have previously turned down efforts by Milam’s attorneys to stay his execution. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Tuesday denied Milam’s request to commute his death sentence to a lesser penalty. Milam’s previously had executions dates in 2019 and 2021 that were stayed.

The Texas Attorney General’s Office has said Milam’s claims that he is intellectually disabled have been rejected in previous court rulings and a recent review of DNA evidence used at his trial “continues to forensically tie him to Amora’s body”.

The attorney general’s office also said in court documents that even if bitemark and DNA evidence were excluded, there was other evidence pointing to his guilt, including his efforts to hide evidence and a confession he made to a nurse after his arrest.

Rusk County District Attorney Micheal Jimerson, who tried the case along with the Texas Attorney General’s Office, told The Associated Press in 2019 that authorities initially treated Milam and Carson as grieving parents.

But Carson later told investigators Milam told her Amora was “possessed by a demon” because “God was tired of her lying to Milam,” according to court records.