Global InformationAndre Thomas information
Andre Thomas | |
|---|---|
| Born | Andre Lee Thomas March 17, 1983 Muskogee County, Oklahoma, U.S. |
| Known for | Murdering his wife, his son, and his wife's daughter; removing both of his eyes and eating one |
| Criminal status | On death row |
| Motive | Hallucinations caused by mental illness and drug abuse |
| Conviction(s) | November 3, 2005 |
| Criminal charge | Capital murder |
Andre Lee Thomas (born March 17, 1983) is an American convicted murderer and death row inmate known for removing both of his eyeballs in separate incidents and ingesting one of them. In 2004, Thomas killed his estranged wife Laura Boren, his four-year-old son and her one-year-old daughter in Sherman, Texas. He cut open the chests of all three victims, and he removed the two children's hearts.
Thomas, whose mental health problems began with auditory hallucinations at about age ten, was in the ninth grade when Boren became pregnant with his child. They married when Thomas was 18, but they separated soon thereafter. In the weeks leading up to the murders, Thomas had suicidal thoughts, drank heavily, and used cold medication as a recreational drug. In jail, a few days after his arrest, Thomas pulled one of his eyes out of its socket. A jury rejected his insanity defense and sentenced him to death on a capital murder conviction. In 2008, he removed his other eye and ingested it.
Thomas was diagnosed with schizophrenia after his arrest, and his case has raised ethical questions about executing the mentally ill. His trial verdict was upheld by a state criminal appeals court in 2008 and by a federal appeals court in 2021. While he is still under a death sentence, Thomas is housed in a Texas prison facility for inmates with psychiatric problems. Thomas was scheduled to be executed on April 5, 2023. On March 7, 2023, a judge delayed the execution date.