This week in 1998

“As the ocean always returns to itself, love always returns to itself. So does consciousness, always returns to itself. And I do so with love on my lips. May God bless all mankind.”

— James Ronald Meanes, convicted of murder, lethal injection,Texas.
Executed December 15, 1998 

Ohio welder Meanes and his accomplice Sandoval “Carlos” Santana shot the driver of an armored car as it stopped at a Houston department store. They stole $1.1 million and fled only to be caught an hour later. The Associated Press reported that “judicial oversight resulted in an additional seven years on death row for Meanes after prosecutors lost track of his case once a federal judge rejected an appeal in 1988.”