HUNTSVILLE, Texas, April 3 -- A convicted murderer who kept a "Slayer's Book of Death" and admired infamous serial killers Charles Manson and Ted Bundy was executed Tuesday in Texas for the 1993 murders of two teenagers near Dallas.
Jason Eric Massey, 28, was pronounced dead at 6:20 p.m. MDT after receiving a lethal injection for killing Christina Benjamin, 13, and her stepbrother, Brian King, 14, near Telico, about 25 miles south of Dallas. Both victims had been shot, and the head and hands of the girl were missing.
In a lengthy final statement, Massey apologized repeatedly for the slayings and revealed that he had tossed the missing remains from Benjamin's body in the Trinity River.
"I can't imagine what I have taken from y'all, but I do want to apologize and I want to let you know that I did do it," he told the victims' relatives. "You guys all know that I am guilty and I am sorry for what I have done."
Massey also apologized to members of his own family and thanked them for their many visits to death row during the past six years.
Five relatives and friends of Massey were witnesses to the execution as well as five members of the victims' families.
In a handwritten statement, Fred and Jeane Bellows, the grandparents of Benjamin, said the execution of Massey would not end their pain but it would close of one chapter of the tragedy. "Now at least we know he will never do this to another young girl," they said.
During the punishment phase of Massey's trial in 1994, a state psychiatrist testified that Massey suffered from anti-social personality disorder and had been treated in a mental hospital in 1991 but later released because his treatments had been unsuccessful.
Another witness had found a cooler in the woods containing animal skulls and jaw bones and journals encased in plastic labeled a "Slayer's Book of Death." The four volumes of fantasies and murder plots were described as the "the thoughts of Jason Massey."
One of Massey's teachers and a former classmate said they were disturbed by Massey's obsession with killing and his admiration of Manson. In his journals, Massey also said he admired how serial killer Ted Bundy deceived his young female murder victims.
Massey said he wanted "to grab society by the throat and shake 'em with terror until they're awake and realize what's up so they will remember who I am, when and why I came their way."
Prosecutors said Massey lured the teenagers away from their home near Garrett July 27, 1993. A road worker found their bodies two days later in a field near Telico, only a few miles away. Both had been shot with a .22 caliber pistol, and Benjamin's body had been mutilated.
A police investigation linked Massey to a .22 caliber pistol used in the crime and blood found in his car was a DNA match to the blood of Benjamin. Hair samples found in the car were also linked to the girl and fibers from the car matched some found on King, police said.
Massey was the sixth convicted killer executed by Texas this year and the 245th since the state restored the death penalty in 1982.
