A HOMICIDE SURVIVOR FORGIVES HER ASSAILANT (BEUNKA ADAMS EXECUTED IN TEXAS ON 26 APRIL 2012)

Summary: Along with accomplice Richard Cobb, Adams robbed a convenience store in Rusk, Texas. At the time of the robbery, Candace Driver and Nikki Dement were working in the store, and the only customer present was Kenneth Vandever. Adams and Cobb were wearing masks and after getting cash from the register, forced the two employees and the customer into a Cadillac parked in the lot and drove to a remote location. After forcing Driver and Vandever into the trunk, Adams and Cobb sexually assaulted Dement. They later made all three victims kneel on the ground, shooting all three with a shotgun. Believing all were dead, both fled the scene. Vandever died from his wounds, but Driver and Dement survived and testified against Adams and Cobb. Accomplice Cobb was convicted and sentenced to death in a separate trial eight months before Adams. Evidence tied the two, met as ninth-graders at a boot camp, to a string of robberies that happened around the same time.

QUOTE: "He asked for forgiveness and I forgive him, but he had to pay the consequences." 

AUTHOR: Nikki Ansley - She survived a rape and murder attempt by Beunka Adams.  Beunka Adams murdered Kenneth Wayne Vandever on 2 September 2002. Beunka Adams was executed by lethal injection in Texas on 26 April 2012.