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Wednesday, July 30, 1997

Life of sex, drugs and rock and roll leads to Texas death chamber

By MICHAEL GRACZYK / Associated Press Writer

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) - A convicted thief who worked the streets of a gay Houston neighborhood to support a lifestyle of "sex, drugs and rock and roll" was executed Tuesday for killing a woman 15 years ago.

Robert West, 35, was pronounced dead at 6:41 p.m., six minutes after a dose of lethal drugs began flowing into his arms.

Asked if he had any final words, West turned to three members of his victim's family and said, "I want to apologize for the pain and suffering, what you people have been through. I hope this gives you some closure. If not now, then down the line."

Then he turned to three friends he had asked to witness his death and expressed thanks and love.

As the drugs took effect, West grunted slightly and took a couple of breaths before slipping into unconsciousness.

The execution was delayed about a half hour while West's attorneys filed unsuccessful federal civil rights claims. Also, the U.S. Supreme Court refused an 11th-hour review of the case on Tuesday.

West was condemned for the beating and stabbing death of Deanna Klaus, 22, who lived one floor below him at a hotel in Houston's Montrose area.

"I don't accept his apology," Dorothy Klaus, whose daughter was murdered, said after watching West die. "He's lying. Why did it take 15 years? It's a shameful thing to do to the victims because we're being victimized after we lose our family. I resent it when somebody gets all these chances."

The lethal injection was the 25th this year in Texas, extending a record for the nation's most active capital punishment state.

Asked what she would say to those who oppose the death penalty in Texas, Mrs. Klaus replied: "Go live somewhere else!"

West had been in and out of jail since he was 15, when he was sent to reform school in Chicago. He also had served prison time in Illinois and Florida for theft and burglary along with a number of other arrests by the time he arrived in Houston at age 20 "to mellow out," he said.

The Klaus murder on August 24, 1982 capped a series of events that began with West and his companion, Gonzalo Tagle, a transvestite known on the streets as Roxanne, picking up an ex-security guard, William Longfellow, who wanted to buy sex.

Instead, Longfellow was robbed and stabbed and left for dead by West. Roxanne eventually got busted by police for prostitution and told police her companion was West's friend, Brett Barstow.

After recovering, Longfellow put out word on the street that he was looking for Roxanne's lover. Barstow turned up dead, shot in the back of the head, in what police termed a drug killing. West, however, believed he was the intended victim.

When he spotted Longfellow speaking with Ms. Klaus, and after learning she had been seen frequently with Longfellow, he decided she had fingered Barstow and prompted his shooting death.

"To say I was in a normal state of mind would be ludicrous," he would say later in a death row interview.

After getting high on drugs and alcohol, he stormed into her hotel room, strangled her and beat and stabbed her with a bottle and a piece of wood, leaving buried in her back a six-inch section of wood that had broken during the attack.

Covered with blood, he walked from the room, passed several people standing outside and was arrested 30 minutes later in his room.

West confessed, had no witnesses at his trial and was sentenced to death. Longfellow and those who saw him emerge from Ms. Klaus' room were among those who testified against him.

"I've never denied any involvement in the murder," West said. "My whole philosophy growing up was sex, drugs and rock and roll. I was happy in drag. I liked sex. I was doing what I liked to do."

West, however, said while on death row he eventually came to realize the effects of his crime.

"If I had any one thing in life that I could do right now to change it would be to go back and give her her life back," he said last week.

"If I could give that life back I'd dance over there (to the death chamber) and jump up on that gurney and sing them a tune and be happy with what was going on - if I could just give that life back and get this off my karma and take away the pain and anger and frustration her family has felt." Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
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