Matthew Lee Johnson was executed by lethal injection in Texas, 13 years after fatally setting 76-year-old Nancy Harris on fire during a robbery. He expressed remorse before his death.
A Texas man was executed Tuesday night, exactly 13 years after committing a horrific robbery that ended with him setting a store clerk on fire in a Dallas suburb.
Matthew Lee Johnson, 49, was given a lethal injection at the Huntsville state penitentiary. He was convicted of the 2012 attack on 76-year-old Nancy Harris, a great-grandmother who suffered severe burns and died days later.
Before the crime, Johnson admitted to smoking $100 worth of crack. He then doused Harris in lighter fluid and lit her on fire.
Facing Harris’ family during his final moments, Johnson said, “As I look at each one of you, I can see her on that day. I please ask for your forgiveness. I never meant to hurt her.”
He added, “I pray that she’s the first person I see when I open my eyes and I spend eternity with.”
In another part of his statement, Johnson turned to his wife and children: “I made wrong choices, I’ve made wrong decisions, and now I pay the consequences.”
Members of Harris’ family, including her sons, daughters-in-law, and a grandchild, watched the execution in silence and did not comment afterward.
Once the injection began, Johnson took a few sharp breaths, then seemed to fall asleep with what sounded like snoring. He was pronounced dead at 6:53 p.m. CDT—26 minutes after the procedure began.
His execution was the second in the U.S. that day. Earlier, Indiana executed Benjamin Ritchie for the 2000 killing of a police officer. This week saw a string of executions: Glen Rogers was executed in Florida on May 15, and Oscar Smith is scheduled to be put to death Thursday in Tennessee.
Part of Johnson’s brutal attack was caught on security footage. Even after suffering life-threatening burns, Harris was able to describe her attacker to police before she died.
There was never any doubt about Johnson’s guilt. He confessed at his 2013 trial and expressed deep regret. “I hurt an innocent woman. I took a human being’s life … It was not my intentions to — to kill her or to hurt her, but I did,” he told the court.
He said he didn’t fully grasp what he was doing at the time, blaming the influence of drugs. His defense also shared details about his long struggle with addiction and his traumatic upbringing, which included sexual abuse.
Harris was a longtime employee at the convenience store, having worked there for over a decade. She lived just a short walk away. Her son testified that she left behind a large and loving family: four sons, 11 grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.
Prosecutors said Harris had only just started her Sunday morning shift when Johnson entered the store. After stealing money from the register, he set her on fire and calmly walked away. She ran out of the store, flames engulfing her, screaming for help. A police officer managed to put out the fire with an extinguisher.
Johnson was arrested about an hour later.
His legal team didn’t file any last-minute appeals with the U.S. Supreme Court. Attorney David Dow said they had previously argued that Johnson’s death sentence was unconstitutional, in part because he had been wrongly labeled a future danger to society—a legal requirement for capital punishment in Texas. Another recent appeal had questioned whether his execution date had been lawfully set.
But on Tuesday night, those arguments were behind him. And his story ended where Harris’ did 13 years ago—on a quiet Texas street forever marked by one tragic morning.
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