Life sentence for homophobic Texan killer

By Jamie Skey • August 18, 2008 - 13:22

A psychologist said Mangum was "a cauldron of hate"

9 Comments on Life sentence for homophobic Texan killer

A Texan jury gave a life sentence to a man found guilty of killing a gay flight attendant in 2007.

Terry Mark Mangum, 27, of Cypress, killed Kenneth Cummings, 46, because he hated homosexuals, the Brazoria County jury heard Wednesday.

Mangum had been out of prison just three weeks when he met Cummings at a Houston bar on 4th June 2007, testimony showed.

The two parted ways and then met again later that night at another club.

They then went to Cummings' Pearland home.

Sometime that night Mangum slit Cummings' throat and stabbed him in the back of the head, breaking 1.5 inches of a knife blade, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors claimed that Mangum cleaned up the house the next day and drove Cummings' body to a ranch near the town of Poteet, approximately 30 miles south of San Antonio.

The partially burned body was found in a shallow grave in a dried-up stock pond on 16th June of last year.

Investigators said Cummings' credit card, which had been taken along with his wallet and car keys, was used to buy a torch, charcoal, gasoline and other items at stores in Schulenburg and Poteet.

Mangum pleaded not guilty due to insanity.

One psychologist said he was "a cauldron of hate."

Shortly after the murder, Mangum admitted to the crime in a jailhouse interview with a reporter from The Facts, a Brazoria County newspaper.

Mangum told the reporter, who testified during the weeklong trial, that God had called on him to “carry out a code of retribution” by killing a gay man because “sexual perversion” is “the worst sin.”

Going by the names of biblical characters during interviews with the reporter and police, he believed he was “anointed and appointed by God” to commit the murder, the psychologists testified.

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