Execution set for infamous Texas killer
DALLAS – One of the meanest men on Texas’ death row is scheduled to be walked to the execution chamber today.
Leon David Dorsey IV, once known on the street as “Pistol Pete,” does not plan to die quietly.
In the more than eight years since a jury sentenced him in the execution-style murders of two young Blockbuster Video store employees, he has earned a reputation as a violent, uncooperative, dangerous death row inmate.
Among his 95 infractions during his time on death row, Dorsey, 32, was cited for possession of weapons, assaulting and threatening to injure staff, refusing to obey orders and starting a fire outside his cell.
His history of misbehavior has kept him at the highest level of lockdown.
Dorsey’s record on death row is no surprise for those who got to know him for his record on the outside.
Former Dallas County prosecutor Toby Shook has worked on 21 death penalty cases.
“I would honestly say Leon might be the meanest man I prosecuted for the death penalty, which is a pretty strong group to shine out of,” said Shook, who now works as a Dallas defense attorney.
Shook said what separated Dorsey from other evil criminals was his brutal honesty.
“He is a fairly full-blown psychopath, but he’s an honest psychopath,” said Shook.
In August 1998, Dorsey was already serving a 60-year sentence for the murder four years earlier of a convenience store manager.
That’s when Dallas police detectives, armed with new information, revisited the man who had long been a suspect in the deaths of James Armstrong, 26, and Brad Lindsey, 20. The men were killed during a robbery as they closed a Blockbuster store.
The April 1994 murder was one of the highest profile Dallas cases of the decade, in part because of its brutality and because portions of it were captured on security tape.
Dorsey confessed to Dallas police homicide Detective Ken Penrod that he was the man seen on fuzzy black and white surveillance camera snapshots, the one who wasn’t satisfied with the $392 he got from a front cash register.
Investigators had no physical evidence linking Dorsey to the crime. But in his detailed confession to police, he provided information that had never been publicly released.
For Penrod, the chill he felt while he sat across the table from Dorsey is unforgettable.
“I remember him like it was just yesterday,” Penrod said. “Because I had the feeling … I was sitting there talking to the devil himself.”