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Richard Eugene Dinkins
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Summary: Dinkins was a 27 year old
Air Force veteran who went to Thompson's Massage Therapy Clinic to discuss a
bad check he had written earlier. Dinkins came armed with a .25 caliber handgun
and a .357 he had purchased the day before. A heated argument ensued between
Dinkins and the owner, 46 year old Katherine Thompson, and when Thompson
attempted to push him out the door, both guns dropped to the floor. Dinkins picked
up the .25, pointed and fired, but it jammed. He then picked up the .357 and
shot Thompson dead. Cutler, a 32 year old customer and also nurse, ran and
locked herself in an office, but Dinkins shot through a reception window and
the bullet hit her in the head, killing her. Dinkins name was found in an
appointment book and upon arrest, confessed to the crime. Blood was found on
his clothing and the .357 murder weapon was found at his home.
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Richard Eugene Dinkins
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ProDeathPenalty.com:
Richard Dinkins killed Katherine Thompson, 46, and Shelly Cutler, 32, on Sept.
12, 1990, at Thompson's massage therapy clinic in Beaumont. Both Dinkins and
Cutler were clients of Thompson's at Therapeutic Massage, and Dinkins had an
appointment that evening to discuss a bad check he had written to her. Prior to
his appointment with Thompson, Dinkins placed a .357 Magnum revolver and a
.25-caliber automatic handgun in a shoulder sling he wore due to an old injury.
He had purchased the .357 handgun and ammunition a day prior to the offense.
Following a brief discussion about the bad check, a heated argument took place.
Thompson pushed Dinkins toward the door into the waiting room where Cutler sat.
Dinkins stated that Thompson struck his injured arm, hurting him. At some point
during the altercation, both handguns fell from Dinkins' sling to the floor. He
picked up the .25 and fired at Thompson but missed. While attempting to fire
again, the gun jammed. Dinkins then picked up the .357 and shot Thompson in the
upper abdomen and then in the head. Both shots were at close range. Cutler, who
was in the waiting room when the shooting started, tried to lock herself in
Thompson's office. Dinkins fired through a reception window at Cutler, striking
her once in the top of the head. Dinkins then fled in his vehicle as the fire
alarm sounded. Thompson suffered two fatal gunshot wounds, one to her head and
one to her abdomen. She died at a hospital shortly after the shooting. Cutler,
a registered nurse, died the next morning of a single gunshot wound to the
head.
Dinkins
was arrested after his name was found in an appointment book at the business.
He confessed to the murders after the murder weapon was found in his truck and
blood was spotted on his jeans. A firearms expert testified that slugs
recovered at the crime scene were fired from Dinkins' .357 revolver. An FBI
forensic serologist testified that blood found on Dinkins' blue jeans was
consistent with Thompson's blood type. Dinkins had no juvenile criminal history
and no adult incarcerations. He was convicted of theft by a check in 1986, in
Abilene, Texas. He was fined for issuance of bad checks in July 1990, in
Lumberton, Texas.
If
Kitty Thompson and Shelly Cutler still were alive, their work likely would
continue to revolve around helping people, friends and family members said. The
2 women, both nurses, had known each other only briefly when together they
became victims of Richard Dinkins' bullets. Dinkins, now 40, is scheduled to be
executed Wednesday for shooting the 2 women to death in Thompson's Therapeutic
Massage offices at 3420 Fannin St. on Sept. 12, 1990. "I was so angry for
so long because she helped so many people," said Diane Shaffer, a friend
of Thompson, who was 46 when she died. That anger has since been replaced by
sadness. "Knowing what Kitty was all about, it's a little difficult to
stay angry at something she wouldn't have stayed angry about," Shaffer
said. "...There's a person who's now gone who could still be helping
people." In addition to nursing, Thompson worked as a substance-abuse
counselor and massage therapist. The night she died, Thompson left Shaffer's offices
on Fannin Street after a private substance-abuse counseling session and headed
to her massage offices a block away. "The last thing I remember her saying
is 'Lock your doors because there's crazies around,'" Shaffer said. But,
despite the comment, Thompson was not a person who lived in fear. "She was
an extremely aware person," Shaffer said. "She was built like a
little bulldog." To succeed in her jobs, Thompson needed, and had, both
physical and mental strength, Shaffer said. "I know when this happened
down there she was given no opportunity to try to diffuse the situation because
she was very confident she could do that with just about anyone," Shaffer
said.
Dinkins
was a 27-year-old assemblies specialist at American Valve & Hydrant at the
time who lived in Sour Lake and had served in the U.S. Air Force. He had a 6:30
p.m. appointment with Thompson under a false name. When he arrived at her
office, they began arguing then physically fighting about money he owed her for
bounced checks from prior appointments, testimony in Dinkins' 1992 trial
showed. Hidden in a shoulder sling, Dinkins had a .25-caliber pistol and a .357
Magnum that he bought the day before. When the smaller weapon jammed, he used
the .357 Magnum to shoot Thompson in the head and abdomen and Cutler in the
head. Firefighters found the two injured women around 8 p.m. when they
responded to a smoke alarm at the office probably tripped by the gun's
discharge. Thompson died before reaching the hospital, and Cutler died the next
morning. Cutler, a 32-year-old traveling nurse who had been in Beaumont only 9
days, was in the office filling out an application for her 1st appointment with
Thompson at 7:30 p.m. Cutler planned to work in Beaumont for 3 months, then
return to Idaho. Cutler loved snow skiing and worked part-time as a ski
instructor, her parents, Marcille and Larry Cutler of Willow Springs, Mo., said
in a telephone interview this past week. She planned to buy a condo in Idaho to
live in half and rent out the other half, her parents said. As a traveling
nurse, Cutler had worked in Hawaii and South Padre Island, where she could
pursue scuba diving and windsurfing, other hobbies she loved, while earning
more money than she could staying in one place. When she left her parents' home
for the last time, "she turned around and said, 'I'll see you guys
Christmas,'" her mother said. "No matter where she was, she'd always
be home Christmas," her father said. "That's probably one of the
hardest times for us." Dinkins has a clemency petition pending with the
Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles but has exhausted all other appeals, said
his attorney, J.D. Hamm of Beaumont. Hamm said he has requested a stay of
execution to explore possible jury misconduct and a change from the death
penalty to a life sentence. During his post-trial investigation, Hamm said, two
jurors admitted to him that they considered Dinkins' silence at trial in
determining punishment. Hamm argues that the possible constitutional violation
has not been fully explored during the appeals process. The board is expected
to vote on the clemency petition early this week. After 12 years of waiting,
Cutler's family members are ready to see the sentence carried out. "None
of us feel resentful," Marcille Cutler said. "We just feel like
justice will be served because we're confident that the trial was a fair trial.
The evidence was so overwhelming. We felt like he was guilty and the jury did
too. We just feel like this is justice." Pollie Dean, who supervised
Thompson in her substance-abuse counseling at Beaumont Neurological Hospital,
said the approaching execution date has revived some of the tension and fear
that those who worked near Thompson's offices felt immediately after the
murders. "I believe he deserves it, and I've never been real for or
against the death penalty," Dean said. "But when it hits you
personally and you see the devastation it causes for the entire family and the
entire community ... I wouldn't feel safe with him being turned back out into
the community. It is, I think, what prisons are made for and the death penalty
is made for."
UPDATE:
Before he was executed, Richard Dinkins declined to make a final statement,
responding to the warden, "No sir" when asked if he wanted to say
anything. In a written statement, however, he asked for forgiveness and
expressed regrets. "I am sorry for what happened and that it was because
of me that they are gone," he said. "If there were any way I could
change things and bring them back I would. But I can't." Dinkins accepted
responsibility for the damage his actions caused but said he had made peace
with God and hoped that "soon everyone will be able to have closure in
their hearts and lives." Last week Dinkins said, "It was my fault. I
guess you just say -- stupidity. I can't be bitter," he said. "I'm
the one who put myself in this situation."
QUOTE 1: At a
press conference after the execution, Mike Thompson, Katherine Thompson's son,
said he was pleased Dinkins' sentence had been carried out. "I never hated the man, (but) he took my mother,"
he said. "I just wanted to make sure the same
happened to him ... justice was done."
QUOTE 2: Thompson
said it made no difference how his mother died and how Dinkins' sentence was
carried out. "Death is death," he
said. "The punishment fit the crime. I came here
to make sure he got what was coming to him."
AUTHOR: Mike Thompson is the son of Katherine Thompson. She and Shelly Cutler
were murdered by Richard Eugene Dinkins on 12 September 1990. Richard Eugene
Dinkins were executed by lethal injection in Texas on 29 January 2003.
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