Leon Dorsey aka Pistol Pete murdered three persons during a 1994 robbery spree in Texas and ended up in its death chamber, the 412th person the state has executed since 1976. He was born in Dallas on November 17, 1975. By Dorsey's own admission, his criminal history began at age 5 when he stabbed a pee-wee football teammate. When he was 10 he tried to set fire to his babysitter's house. When he was 14, he brought a gun to school and fired it in a classroom. Dorsey then spent some time living with his mother, an Air Force service member, in Germany during which he broke into a house, stole items from a car, and stole items from lockers at the base gymnasium. Two years later he shot at a couple in a car and threatened them. In January 1994, Dorsey was arrested for driving a car without a license and received probation. He would estimate that he "probably" killed around nine people over the years.On the evening of Monday April 4, he walked into a Blockbuster video rental store in Dallas where two store employees, Brad Lindsey, 20, and James Armstrong, 26, were working. Dorsey ordered the two at gunpoint into the back room and told them to open the safe. Armstrong tried to run and got shot. Dorsey then also shot Lindsey as a witness. He made off with $400 from the cash register. Although a security camera recorded Dorsey entering the store, he was not then identified. Dallas police questioned him as a suspect but quickly released him, even though they would later learn he owned a 9mm handgun like the type used to shoot Lindsey and Armstrong. The two men were shot in the back; Lindsey once, Armstrong twice.
The murders of the two store employees went unsolved for the time being. On September 11, Dorsey entered a Waxahachie convenience store and forced the cashier, 51 year old Hyon Suk Chon, into the back room and shot her in the head. Dorsey was again taken in for questioning and his gun confiscated for ballistics tests, which matched the bullet recovered from Hyon. He was arrested for first degree murder and admitted to shooting Hyon but denied any responsibility for the earlier robbery. Dorsey pled guilty to 2nd degree murder and got 60 years in prison.
While re-investigating the Blockbuster robbery four years later, investigators again found Dorsey refusing to admit to anything. They examined the security camera tape more carefully in case they'd missed anything before and then sent it to the FBI's crime lab in Washington D.C. The grainy VHS footage was not tremendously useful but the individual seen on it was about the same height as Dorsey. He was also wearing a distinctive multicolored jacket; some of Dorsey's friends and acquaintances said he owned a coat like that but they never saw him wearing it again after April 4, 1994. His girlfriend said he wore his hair in a similar style to the man seen in the tape footage and that after the robbery she'd given him braids to help hide his identity.Once again questioned, he finally broke down and admitted everything. Dorsey had already admitted the murders to several people including a cellmate in jail, whom he offered $5,000 to take the blame for it. He spoke to The Dallas Morning News and said "I've done cut folks, I've done stabbed folks, I've killed folks but it don't bother me." Dorsey displayed little remorse for his crimes and said what was done was done and the deaths of Lindsey and Armstrong were equivalent to losing a poker game. He admitted he'd been drunk and high when the Blockbuster robbery happened and that one of the two victims must have said or done something to anger him, although he couldn't remember exactly what it was. Dorsey mostly blamed his girlfriend for why he got caught. "It ain't my home boys that turned on me, it's this bitch that I used to put $100 shoes on her feet and take care of her kids. She better hope I never get out of this penitentiary."
He was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to death in June 2000 after a two month trial. In prison Dorsey racked up 100 different offenses including stabbing a correctional officer 14 times with a shank; the officer was saved from major injuries by his Kevlar vest.Dorsey was executed on August 12, 2008.
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OP please do not post threads about black-on-white crimes. Thank you.
