Texas executes killer incited by gay hate Ann Rostow, PlanetOut Network Tuesday, January 4, 2005 / 05:14 PM

SUMMARY: Prison officials in Texas executed the first death row inmate of 2005 on Tuesday. James Porter earned a death sentence for murdering a fellow inmate whom Porter believed was gay.

Prison officials in Huntsville, Texas, executed the first death row inmate of 2005 on Tuesday evening at 6 p.m. James Porter, 33, earned a death sentence for the murder of a fellow prisoner, Rudy Delgado, whom Porter believed was gay.

According to the Associated Press, Delgado was serving 15 years for sexual abuse of a child at the time. Porter claimed that Delgado was gay. "Dude was a homosexual," said Porter, who added that Delgado "asked me several times if that was something I might dig."

According to the Texas death row Web site and wire reports, Porter was serving 45 years -- for shooting a homeless man and dumping his body in a well -- in the Telford Unit in Northeast Texas, where he encountered Delgado. At some point, Porter said he snapped.

"One day, frustration started eating on me, like a little old black shroud covering my eyes," he said in a recent interview. "I guess at that time, I just lost all my cool and didn't care anymore." On May 28, 2000, Porter walked into the day room with a rock inside a pillowcase and beat Delgado to death.

Prosecutor James Elliot told the press that after the attack, Delgado's face "could not be recognized as that of a human." Porter reportedly then helped seal his own fate by writing a note to Elliot during his murder trial, pointing out that the world was better off with Delgado dead.

Porter said later that he was sort of proud of himself. "That dude never touched any little boys again."

According to the Associated Press, Porter eventually expressed regret. "It wasn't my place to repunish him for something he was already punished for," he said. "I'm sorry it happened. That's all I can say."

In 2004, Texas led the nation in executions, putting 23 men to death, over half of them African-American.