Texas death-row inmate poised to be first U.S. execution of 2026 for 1998 double murder

Texas death-row inmate Charles Victor Thompson, who once escaped custody after a 2005 resentencing, is slated to be the first person executed in the United States this year for the 1998 killings of his ex-girlfriend Glenda Hayslip and her new boyfriend Darren Cain in Tomball; the lethal injection would be in Huntsville. Prosecutors describe a jealous, abusive pattern, and Thompson’s lawyers sought a Supreme Court stay arguing the death sentence should be reconsidered, but the Texas Board of Pardons denied commuting his sentence. Thompson had previously escaped from Harris County Jail and was recaptured in Shreveport.