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Ray Jasper, an aspiring rapper, will be executed today (March 19) barring any last-minute appeals. A U.S. district court judge in San Antonio, Texas has rejected the 33-year-old’s appeal of his death sentence.
Jasper was convicted in 1998 of slitting the throat and stabbing David Alejandro, a recording studio owner, so he could rob him of his equipment. Jasper and two friends recorded at the studio for about two hours and then took out knives to attack Alejandro.
“Jasper slashed Alejandro’s throat from ear to ear, but did not kill him,” the Texas attorney general’s office said.
Afterward, Jasper and an accomplice repeatedly stabbed Alejandro until he was dead. About $10,000 to $30,000 worth of equipment was stolen from the studio.
Jasper admitted to cutting Alejandro’s throat to steal equipment, but he insists a partner was responsible for the studio owner’s fatal stab wounds. Two other men with Jasper during the attack are now serving life in prison.
The state of Texas, which executes more people than any other in the U.S., plans to execute Ray Jasper at 6PM CDT by lethal injection at its death chamber in Huntsville.
Jasper recently sent a final letter from death row to Gawker, in which he describes the prison industry as slavery.
Understandably, he’s also not fond of the death penalty.
“I don’t agree with the death penalty, ” he writes. “It’s a very Southern practice from that old lynching mentality. Almost all executions take place in the South with a few exceptions here and there. Texas is the leading State by far.”
“The death penalty needs to be abolished,” he continues. Life without parole is still a death sentence. The only difference is time. To say you need to kill a person in a shorter amount of time is just seeking revenge on that person.”
Jasper signs off the letter with this statement:
“I’m a father. My daughter was six weeks old when I got locked up and now she’s 15 in high school. Despite the circumstances, I’ve tried to be the best father in the world. But I knew that her course in life is largely determine by what I teach her. It’s the same with any young person, their course is determined by what we are teaching them. In the words of Aristotle, ‘All improvement in society begins with the education of the young.’”
Read Ray Jasper’s final letter here.
