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Crime

Carl Wayne Buntion was born in Harris County, Texas, on March 30th, 1944. His childhood was rough, as his father was abusive toward the entire family. In one incident, he knocked his wife’s teeth out. In another incident, he broke Buntion’s bones.

Buntion father also murdered a man in front of one of his kids.

It didn’t take long for Buntion to follow in his father’s footsteps. He was convicted of theft in 1961, and the convictions piled up. He caught cases for burglary, property damage, and drug possession.

He wasn’t the only bad Buntion. One of his brothers served twenty years in prison, and his twin brother Kenneth was killed in a shootout with police on April 10th, 1971.

In the late 1980s, Buntion was sent to prison for 15 years for violating a child. A parole board released him back onto the streets after he served just 13 months.

On June 27th, 1990, Buntion was riding a shotgun in a friend’s vehicle. 37-year-old Houston Police Officer James Kirby pulled the two men over. He walked up and started talking to the driver, but the conversation ended when Bunion jumped out of the passenger seat and shot the officer in the head.

He then put two rounds into his back to finish him off. Buntion took off on foot. He shot at a bystander and tried to kill another person during a carjacking attempt. After shooting a responding officer and holding a man at gunpoint, he was captured at a building in the area.

Legal Proceedings

He went to trial in 1991. A jury convicted him of capital murder, and a judge sentenced him to death. After a successful appeal, his death sentence was vacated in 2009. He was retried in 2012. One of his brothers testified about their traumatic childhood, hoping to keep his brother off death row, but it didn’t work.

A jury sentenced him to death for a second time.

Execution

On April 21st, 2022, officers took him to the death chamber. As he prepared to die, he stated,

“I wanted the Irby family to know one thing: I do have remorse for what I did. I pray to God that they get the closure for me killing their father and Ms. Irby’s husband… To all of my friends that stuck with me through all of these years, I am not going to say ‘goodbye,’ just saying ‘so long.’ I am ready to go to Heaven, warden.”

The 78-year-old is the oldest person ever executed in Texas.