Killer Who Cited METALLICA Song Spared Death

November 18, 2004

For a second time this year, a San Antonio man who chanted the chorus to METALLICA's "No Remorse" after fatally shooting a man in the head in Corpus Christi and robbing him of $13 twenty years ago avoided the Texas death chamber when the U.S. Supreme Court stopped his scheduled execution the same day he was supposed to receive a lethal injection.

About 40 minutes after condemned inmate Troy Kunkle could have been put to death Thursday night (Nov. 18),Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials in Huntsville received word the high court had blocked the punishment, the Associated Press reports.

Kunkle was in a small holding cell next to the Texas death house when he received word.

"Ecstatic," Kunkle said when asked to describe his feeling. "Praise God."

"He seemed completely surprised," Michelle Lyons, a Texas prison spokeswoman said.

According to testimony at his capital murder trial, Kunkle was 18 when he fatally shot Stephen Horton, 31, then chanted: "Another day, another death, another sorrow, another breath" — the refrain from the METALLICA song "No Remorse" on an album called "Kill 'Em All". A pool of blood is depicted on the album cover.

"Well, to be honest with you, it was basically just a situation to where it was a juvenile mistake made with juvenile peer pressure," Kunkle, 38, told San Antonio television station KENS Wednesday from death row. "There's nothing about this to be proud of. Really, it's kind of a shame and an embarrassment."

Prosecutors also remembered him at one point playing an air guitar in the courtroom at his trial as lawyers discussed whether the METALLICA song could be admitted into evidence. Read more.

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