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Charles Victor
THOMPSON
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Argument
- Revenge
Number of victims: 2
Date of murders:
April 30,
1998
Date of birth: June
13,
1970
Victims profile: His ex-girlfriend, Dennise Hayslip, 39,
and her
new boyfriend, Darren Keith Cain, 30
Charles Victor
Thompson (born 13 June
1970) is an American criminal. Sentenced to death
for the murder of his ex-girlfriend and her lover in
1998, Thompson made headlines in 2005 by escaping
from Harris County Jail in Houston, Texas after a
parole meeting using a forged ID badge, claiming to
be with the Attorney General's office.
He was captured 3
days later outside a liquor store in Shreveport,
Louisiana where he was using a pay phone while
intoxicated. He was able to get food and clothing,
he told investigators, posing as a Hurricane Katrina
evacuee. He also got money from Good Samaritans in
Shreveport.
Name
TDCJ Number
Date of Birth
Thompson, Charles Victor
999306
06/13/1970
Date Received
Age
(when Received)
Education Level
05/05/1999
28
10
Date of Offense
Age
(at the Offense)
County
04/30/1998
27
Harris
Race
Gender
Hair Color
White
Male
Brown
Height
Weight
Eye Color
6' 0"
216
Blue
Native County
Native State
Prior/ Occupation
Harris
Texas
heating & air conditioner installation, electronics,
exterminator, laborer
Prior Prison
Record/
None
Summary of
incident
On 04/30/98
in Houston, Thompson got into an argument with a white male and
white female in her apartment.
The night before
officers had been called to the same address and had escorted
Thompson away from the residence.
Thompson returned
early the next morning and kicked the door in.
Thompson shot the
male, causing his death, and injuring the female severely enough
to require life flight to the hospital.
She died one week
later, as a result of the shooting.
Co-defendants
None
Race and Gender of
Victim
White
male & female
Fugitive Murderer Caught,
Drunk
Charles Thompson Was Chatting On A Pay Phone
Outside A Liquor Store
SHREVEPORT, Nov. 7, 2005 - CBS News
A convicted double-murderer who spent three
days on the run after slipping away from a Houston jail was
recaptured some 200 miles away — drunk and talking on a pay
phone.
Police acting on a tip Sunday found Charles
Victor Thompson, 35, standing outside a liquor store in
Shreveport, La., said Harris County Sheriff's Lt. John Martin.
"You know who I am," Thompson told officers
when asked his name. Asked again, he identified himself as
Charles Thompson, Martin said.
Katrina Webber of CBS affiliate KSLA-TV
reports the store's employees watched the arrest.
"They said he was laughing, he didn't look as
if he was afraid or intimidated or upset in any way," Webber
told CBS Radio News. "He just kind of laughed, and one
employee said that he appeared to be drunk at the time, and that
he was just kind of taking this whole thing as a big joke as
they pulled him into the police car."
Police said Thompson was too drunk to be
interrogated Sunday night.
Thompson made a video court appearance before
state District Judge Ramona Emanuel in Shreveport on Monday.
Authorities said he would be sent to Houston when the paperwork
was completed.
"I don't want to waste the taxpayers' money
in Louisiana," Thompson said as he waived extradition.
The arrest ended a massive manhunt for
Thompson, who was convicted in 1999 for the shooting deaths a
year earlier of his ex-girlfriend, Dennise Hayslip, 39, and her
new boyfriend, Darren Keith Cain, 30.
"He never should have got out," Martin said.
"To have him back in custody again, this is where he belongs. He
was convicted of capital murder. He was twice sentenced to death.
There is no scenario under which he should be free roaming
around on the street."
Shreveport city Jail Supervisor Barry Newton
said Thompson had been booked on charges of being a fugitive
from the U.S. Marshals Service and a fugitive from Harris County.
Thompson was sentenced to death Oct. 28 and
was being held in the county jail until he could be transferred
to a prison in Livingston, about 75 miles to the northeast.
Thompson escaped from custody Thursday using
a smuggled set of clothes and a fake identification badge to get
past guards. His escape resulted from "multiple errors" by jail
personnel, Martin has said.
Marshals designated Thompson a federal
fugitive in order to use its resources to find him and offered a
$10,000 reward for his capture. Jurors and victims' relatives
feared for their safety.
When he was arrested, Thompson had a bicycle,
but it was unclear how he got to Shreveport, Martin said.
Authorities did not know who he was talking to on the phone.
Even though Thompson's arrest was very
important, it was only a small part of the ongoing investigation
into how he managed to escape the county jail, said Steve Tiller
with the U.S. Marshals Service.
On Thursday afternoon, Thompson was taken to
a room in the jail for a meeting with his attorney. The visitor,
however, was not Thompson's attorney of record, Terrence Gaiser,
although investigators have determined the other person was an
attorney, Martin said. His name has not been released because he
is considered a witness.
After the attorney left, Thompson was alone
in the room and he managed to remove his handcuffs and his
bright orange prison jumpsuit and put on a dark blue shirt,
khaki pants and white tennis shoes. Authorities believe those
were the clothes Thompson wore during his sentencing and say he
somehow smuggled them back to his cell.
Wearing his new outfit, Thompson left the
prisoner's booth in the visiting room and waved a fake ID badge
that wasn't scrutinized as he passed at least four jail
employees at work stations. Thompson was eventually let into the
jail's visitor's lobby and from there he walked out of the
building and into the street.
"There's no way Chuck had the brain power for
this," said John Donaghy, whose sister Thompson was convicted of
killing. "He's not the sharpest pencil in the box."
Donaghy said he and his family felt a sense
of relief when they learned of the capture. The family has spent
the past few days hiding in hotels and staying with friends in
other parts of the state.
"My family can now go back to a normal
living. They have been totally disrupted," he said.
Authorities think somebody helped him escape,
Martin said. "We do think that people helped him if for no other
reason than we found his clothes back behind another jail
facility," he said.
Donaghy said he expected Thompson would have
been caught in Mexico, not Louisiana.
"I figured he had enough common sense to stay
hidden for a while," he said. "It's just ridiculous that he got
out."
Nabbed killer back in Texas
Death row inmate extradited from Louisiana
Tuesday, November 8, 2005 - CNN News
HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- A Texas death row
inmate who escaped last week from a Houston jail and was taken
into custody Sunday night outside a liquor store in Shreveport,
Louisiana, is back in Texas, a court official told CNN late
Monday.
Charles Victor Thompson, 35, was the subject
of a 78-hour, nationwide manhunt after he escaped Thursday by
shedding his handcuffs and trading his prison jumpsuit for
street clothes in a jailhouse booth after telling deputies he
was meeting with a lawyer.
He was back behind bars in the same Harris
County Jail on Monday night.
Earlier in the day, Thompson made an
appearance before a Louisiana judge from the Shreveport jail via
video feed and waived his right to counsel and extradition.
Authorities said Thompson talked his way out
of the jail by showing deputies a fake ID that indicated he was
with the attorney general's office.
Thompson offered authorities no resistance
when arrested, said Marianne Matus, a spokeswoman for the U.S.
Marshals Service.
Matus said marshals received "several
credible tips" that Thompson was in the area, and police found
him about 8 p.m. on a pay phone outside a liquor store in
Shreveport, about 240 miles north of Houston.
"He appeared to be intoxicated," Matus said.
The officers walked up to the escaped killer and asked him his
name. He told them, "You know who I am."
Authorities said Thompson had a bicycle with
him.
Officers determined he was too drunk to be
questioned immediately, Matus said.
Thompson was transferred early Monday to the
Caddo Parish Correctional Facility, where he was booked as an
out-of-state fugitive and taken to the men's mental health unit,
said spokeswoman Cindy Chadwick.
He was placed alone in a cell on an escape
and suicide watch, she said. Chadwick described Thompson as
"mild-mannered" and compliant. "So far, he has been no problem."
But Jebran Siddiqui, a clerk at the liquor
store, said the arrest was more dramatic than Matus described.
Siddiqui said he was working at the shop's drive-through window
when he saw "some maniac kind of guy running around outside."
About the same time, he saw another man get out of a car with a
shotgun.
He said Thompson was heading toward his store
and he feared a shootout was in the works -- so he grabbed a gun
and walked to the door.
"I was shaking, like shivering and everything,
but I wasn't losing my grip," Siddiqui said. "I think he was
planning to come inside the store and, I don't know, hold us
hostage or something."
The man with a shotgun turned out to be an
undercover police officer, and several other officers swarmed in
and "took him down pretty brutally" within three feet of the
store, Siddiqui said.
Thompson was convicted of capital murder in
April 1999 in the shooting deaths of his former girlfriend,
Dennise Hayslip, 39, and her friend, Darren Cain, 30. He was
sentenced to death.
The state Court of Criminal Appeals threw out
the death sentence, ruling that Thompson's right to an attorney
had been violated during his trial.
On October 28, a second jury sentenced
Thompson to death.
"I'm glad to know no one else was harmed,"
Cain's brother, Devin Donaghey, told CNN. "I'm glad to know that
he's back in custody."
Donaghey called Thompson a "worthless piece
of society."
Donaghey also had harsh words for sheriff's
deputies in Harris County, which includes Houston. He said they
"dropped the ball" by letting Thompson escape.
"It's not the whole Sheriff's Department's
fault, but there's more to this than what's come out," Donaghey
said. "What happened should've never been possible."
Lt. John Martin, of the Harris County
Sheriff's Department, agreed and said an investigation has
already been launched.
"There's no scenario under which it's even
conceivable that someone who's on death row could simply walk
out of a jail," he said. "It's not the case that any force was
used. He didn't use a weapon. He simply convinced us to let him
walk out the front door."
