When will Texas serial killer Jason Thornburg be executed? It could take decades.

By ShaCamree Gowdy

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    TARRANT COUNTY, Texas (KTVT) — Fort Worth cannibal serial killer Jason Thornburg received the death penalty on Wednesday.

In November, jurors convicted Thornburg of capital murder for dismembering and burning the bodies of three people in what he called “human sacrifices.”

When will Jason Thornburg be executed?

Although he has received his conviction and sentence, the court process is not yet complete, as death penalty cases in Texas automatically undergo an appeal. If the Texas Supreme Court upholds the verdicts, Thornburg will likely remain on death row for several years before his execution.

Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in Texas in 1976, the state has led the nation in executions, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. On average, inmates spend approximately 11.22 years on death row before their execution.

The shortest time an inmate spent on death row was Joe Gonzales Potter, who awaited execution for 252 days before execution on Sept. 18, 1996. The longest time belongs to David Lee Powell Travis, who sat on death row for 11,575 days, or 31 years, before being executed on June 15, 2010.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, lethal injection is the sole execution method used in the state.

How Thornburg got the death penalty

His victims, a man and two women, were identified as David Lueras, 42, Lauren Phillips, 34, and Maricruz Mathis, 33.

Jurors and the victims’ family members were in tears as they delivered powerful statements against Thornburg in a Tarrant County courtroom on Wednesday.

Family members described Thornburg as “evil” and a “madman,” saying the death penalty was the appropriate punishment for his crimes, which they felt they could never forgive.

Thornburg’s defense attorney asked jurors to spare his life, saying he had a mental illness and suffered from partial fetal alcohol syndrome.

Bodies dismembered and severely burned

On Sept. 22, 2021, West Fort Worth firefighters responded to a dumpster fire behind a business just after 6:15 a.m. Inside, they found severely burned and heavily dismembered human body parts, with some also missing.

Surveillance footage from an Euless motel and cameras near the dumpster linked Thornburg, an electrician’s apprentice, to the crime. He later told police he dismembered the bodies and kept them stored in a room at the motel before setting them on fire.

According to an affidavit, Thornburg said he had an in-depth knowledge of the Bible and believed God called him to commit human sacrifices. Police said he used religion to lure his victims.

Besides the crimes for which he received the death penalty, Thornburg also confessed to killing his ex-girlfriend, 36-year-old Tanya Begay, in Arizona in 2017, and Mark Jewell, 61 — a former roommate whose funeral he spoke at — in May of 2021.

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