Featured Image Credit: Texas Department of Criminal Justice
Topics: US News, Crime, True Crime
Ella Scott
Topics: US News, Crime, True Crime
Warning: This article contains discussion of child abuse which some readers may find distressing.
A Texas death row inmate has been executed almost 15 years after murdering his girlfriend’s daughter as part of a so-called ‘exorcism’ - and his last words were chilling.
In December 2008, 13-month-old Amora Carson was killed by Blaine Milam, now 35, in the latter’s trailer in Rusk County in East Texas.
At the time of his sentencing, prosecutors heard how then 18-year-old Milam had beaten, bitten, strangled, and mutilated his then-girlfriend’s daughter over a 30-hour period.
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It’s alleged that he acted because his partner at the time, Jesseca Carson, then 18, had reportedly claimed that a demon possessed her child. However, Carson told investigators that it was Milam who claimed Amora was ‘possessed by a demon’, as per court documents.
According to the Associated Press, Carson was tried separately from her boyfriend and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after being convicted of capital murder.
Rusk County District Attorney Michael Jimerson, who tried the case along with the Texas Attorney General’s Office, said in 2019 that authorities initially believed both Milam and Carson were just grieving parents.
Following the 2010 trial and the sentencing of both parties, Jimerson said: “We will never know what Amora would have contributed to our world. Answering the call for justice for the most helpless is a measure of a civilized people.”
After being handed a cell on death row, Milam’s defence lawyers went through multiple rounds of execution appeals.
Reports claimed that the Texas native had an intellectual disability and, therefore, was ineligible for execution, referring to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that took place in 2002.
Despite protests, which did result in execution dates in 2019 and 2021 being moved, the appeals were eventually all rejected by the courts. This included a last-ditch attempt to save Milam’s life.
On Thursday (September 25), Milam was given a lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital in his right hand.
Before his death at 6.19pm local time, the convicted killer said: “If any of you would like to see me again, I implore all of you, no matter who you are, to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and we will meet again."
“I love you all. Bring me home, Jesus,” he said from the death chamber gurney.
The Associated Press wrote that two minutes after being given the injection, he stopped moving, and all sounds had ceased. Minutes later, he was declared dead.
In 2012, Milam made an appearance on the Channel 4 show On Death Row.
The mini-series also featured conversations with self-identified serial killer James Barnes, who was executed by lethal injection in August 2023, and Linda Carty, a woman who was convicted of killing a woman and stealing her four-year-old child.
Milam’s capital punishment was one of two incidents that took place across the US on Thursday.
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence regarding the welfare of a child, contact the NSPCC on 0808 800 5000, 10am-8pm Monday to Friday. If you are a child seeking advice and support, call Childline for free on 0800 1111, 24/7.