Dallas man to be executed Wednesday for slaying of McKinney real estate agent (2023)

A Dallas man who was convicted of killing a real estate agent inside a McKinney model home in 2006 is once again asking to be spared death on the eve of his execution.

Kosoul Chanthakoummane, 41, has already successfully halted his execution twice, citing questionable forensic techniques that helped send him to death row.

But the state has opposed any new delays, saying DNA testing and retesting over the years has provided solid evidence of his guilt. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled in October 2020 that Chanthakoummane’s DNA was found under the victim’s fingernails and in the model home where she was killed.

Chanthakoummane is scheduled to die by lethal injection Wednesday in Huntsville for the slaying of Sarah Anne Walker, 40.

He admitted to being inside the model home where her body was found but maintains his innocence. Anti-death penalty activists oppose his execution, saying his conviction 15 years ago was based in part on flawed and outdated evidence such as bite mark analysis and forensic hypnosis.

Police arrested Chanthakoummane after they released a sketch with the help of a hypnotized witness who claimed to have seen a young Asian man at the scene. Law enforcement officials believe hypnosis acts as a “relaxation tool” to get witnesses and victims to recall what they saw. But its use has dropped off since the 1970s and ’80s, and many states have banned it because of questions of reliability. Chanthakoummane’s attorneys have called it “junk science.”

The hypnosis was used for the police sketch after the witnesses, a real estate agent and her husband, reported seeing an Asian man in a white Mustang at the model home the day of the murder. At trial, they identified Chanthakoummane as the man they saw, as well as his Mustang.

Another real estate agent who had previously helped Chanthakoummane find an apartment told police he showed up at her home the night before the murder and banged on her doors.

The state appeals court found that the bite mark analysis played a “minimal role” in the case.

“The linchpin of the State’s case was the DNA evidence found at the scene and under Walker’s fingernails,” the appellate judges wrote in a 2020 opinion.

Chanthakoummane’s lawyer, Eric Allen, said on Monday that a defense expert had given his opinion on the DNA match relied on by prosecutors, saying his client could have been in the home days before the murder.

Allen said the state appeals court recently rejected his request for a re-analysis of the DNA evidence. He said it’s extremely rare for a Texas governor to issue a stay of execution but that all hope has not yet been extinguished

The state also relied on Chanthakoummane’s own admissions, eyewitness accounts and other circumstantial evidence linking him to the murder, the appeals court ruled.

Assistant Attorney General Rachel Patton wrote in a July filing in federal court that the question about DNA evidence has been “thoroughly covered in the numerous post-conviction proceedings” since Chanthakoummane’s conviction.

Trial evidence, for example, included DNA “consistent with Chanthakoummane’s” DNA that was recovered from under Walker’s fingernails, window pull cords, the deadbolt lock and swabs throughout the house.

Chanthakoummane had scratches and other wounds on hands and arms at the time of his arrest, court records show. And during police questioning, he admitted to being in the model home the day of the murder.

“None of the DNA results have been remotely exculpatory. Any belief by Chanthakoummane that further DNA investigation would yield results that will be helpful to his case is a fantasy,” Patton wrote in her filing. “It is very likely that further review of the DNA testing results, which have not been favorable to him, will also be unfavorable.”

Chanthakoummane’s last execution date was in July 2017. The Court of Criminal Appeals at the time sent his case back to the Collin County trial court to review questionable forensic evidence that was used to convict him in 2007.

The trial court held a hearing on the issues raised by Chanthakoummane and denied all of his claims. The state, however, agreed to conduct additional DNA testing on two exhibits that hadn’t previously been tested. After reviewing the DNA report, a state judge concluded in October 2021 that the results, if used at the trial, would likely not have changed the outcome, according to court records.

A couple visiting a model home on Conch Train Road near Custer Road found Walker’s body on July 8, 2006.

Walker had been beaten, bitten and stabbed multiple times. Her nose and teeth were fractured. A medical examiner testified at trial that 10 of her 33 stab wounds were fatal. The jewelry she was wearing was stolen but never recovered.

Chanthakoummane was at the time a 25-year-old felon who was living with relatives in Dallas after being released from prison on parole from North Carolina. He had served seven years of an 11-year sentence for aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery. The conviction stemmed from an incident in which he and a friend held two women at gunpoint before stealing a car and leading police on a chase.

Chanthakoummane, the son of Laotian immigrants who worked as a delivery driver, was arrested nearly two months after the McKinney murder.

At his murder trial, his attorneys admitted that he stabbed Walker but argued that he didn’t deserve the death penalty because it was a robbery that “didn’t go the right way.”

A jury convicted him after 30 minutes of deliberation. They heard testimony about the DNA evidence during the eight-day trial and watched a police video in which Chanthakoummane repeatedly changed his story during the two-hour interview after his arrest. Near the end, he admitted going into the McKinney model home that day but he said he never saw anyone inside.

Jurors also decided his fate, saying he deserved death rather than life in prison.

Death Penalty Action, a nonprofit group that opposes capital punishment, recently held a news conference about the case, highlighting its concerns. The group played a video produced by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic organization, about how the victim’s father, a devout Catholic, had forgiven Chanthakoummane and opposed his execution.

“We are not prepared to say today that Kosoul is innocent. But we are here to say, there’s some real questions,” said Abraham Bonowitz, executive director of Death Penalty Action, during the Aug. 3 news conference.

Bonowitz said Chanthakoummane’s DNA was not found in the bite mark on Walker’s neck. He said it wasn’t his group’s normal practice to investigate a capital murder case. But nobody else was doing it, he said. The biggest question people should ask, he said, was: “Can we trust the government to tell the truth?”

He said his organization has filed a clemency petition with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on behalf of Chanthakoummane, seeking a stay of execution.

The petition concludes by saying Texas has a history of wrongful convictions.

“With a punishment so severe as the death penalty, there can be no room for error. We are not convinced that the state of Texas got it right in this case. We urge you to recommend clemency or a reprieve in order to allow a more thorough review of the concerns raised in this letter.”

If his 11th-hour appeal fails, Chanthakoummane will become the 575th prisoner put to death in Texas since 1982, according to state statistics.

Texas leads the nation in executions since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

And Texas has the third-highest number of death row inmates in the nation, behind California and Florida, according to the Austin advocacy group, Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.