John Hummel
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| “ | This guy senselessly took the life of a beautiful mother, a beautiful child, and a grandfather that did everything for them. For him to want to be single and just kill them this way is senseless. | „ |
| ~ Miles Brissette-Tarrant County Assistant Criminal District Attorney |
John William Hummel (November 4, 1975 - June 30, 2021) was an American death row inmate convicted of the 2009 murders of his pregnant wife Joy, 5-year-old daughter Jodi and father-in-law Clyde Bedford. Investigators said his goal was to dispose of his family so he could pursue a woman he had been having an affair with.
Crimes edit
In late 2009 Hummel was working as a security guard in Texas. He reportedly lived in the city of Kennedale with his wife (who was pregnant) and daughter, along with his father-in-law Clyde. Their relationship seemed to be a happy one on the surface, but all one had to do was look a little closer to see the truth. Hummel was having a text-based affair with a clerk named Kristie Freeze. The affair had briefly been broken off after she discovered Hummel's wife was pregnant, but resumed on December 16 when Freeze's divorce became final. On December 17, Hummel visited Freeze for about thirty minutes.
The next day, emergency services responded in the early hours of the morning to a call about a house in Kennedale burning down. After the fire was extinguished, the bodies of Hummel's family were found inside the wreckage. Police questioned Hummel, who told them he was visiting a friend when the fire happened and had gone shopping afterwards. Officers noticed blood on Hummel's clothes and took them as evidence. Hummel then went to work and didn't return. A missing person's report was filed.
Autopsies on the three bodies found that none of them had died by fire. Hummel's wife, Joy, had been stabbed 35 times and suffered several head injuries. Clyde and Jodi had both suffered fractured skulls. All three were dead before the fire, which had been deliberately started. A warrant was issued for Hummel's arrest after the blood on his clothes was found to belong to his three victims, but he couldn't be found, having fled to Mexico.
In 2011, Hummel returned to the USA with his driver's licence. Border security received an alert that he was wanted and detained him. Hummel gave a statement in which he confessed to the murders and gave a truthful account of his dealings that night. He was convicted of the murders and sentenced to death. When the appeals process was complete, he was scheduled for execution on March 18, 2020. However, a global outbreak of coronavirus pushed his execution back to 2021.
On June 30, 2021, the 45-year-old Hummel was executed by lethal injection. The killer was injected with a lethal dose of pentobarbital and started snoring quietly after a few breaths. He was pronounced dead at 6:49pm local time - 13 minutes after the injection was administered. Just before his execution, he expressed remorse for killing his family.