Michael Perry of Texas: Murders, Appeals, and Into the Abyss

Michael Perry was a Texas death row inmate executed by lethal injection on July 1, 2010, for the shotgun murders of Sandra Stotler, her 16-year-old son Adam, and Adam’s 18-year-old friend Jeremy Richardson in October 2001 near Lake Conroe, north of Houston. He was 19 at the time of the killings, which he and an accomplice committed to steal the family’s vehicles. His case reached a wider audience in 2011 when Werner Herzog interviewed him eight days before his execution for the documentary Into the Abyss.¹

The Lake Conroe Murders

On the evening of October 24, 2001, Perry and Jason Aaron Burkett went to Sandra Stotler’s home in a subdivision near Lake Conroe in Montgomery County. According to Perry’s later confession, Burkett knocked on the front door while Perry entered through the back carrying a 12-gauge shotgun. When Sandra Stotler, 50, came to the back door, Perry shot her twice. The two men dragged her body out, loaded it into a truck, drove to nearby Crater Lake, and submerged it. Their goal was her red Chevrolet Camaro convertible. Unbaked cookie dough was still sitting on the kitchen counter, and a television was playing in the living room.²³

A few hours later, the pair lured Adam Stotler and Jeremy Richardson into a wooded area by telling them a mutual friend had been hurt and needed help. Burkett shot both teenagers with the same shotgun. Perry told investigators he had walked off to get cigarettes and saw Burkett shoot Adam, then heard more gunfire. The two then stole Adam’s white Isuzu Rodeo.¹

How Perry Was Caught

The case broke through a tip from Shane Atkinson, a tattoo parlor owner. Atkinson later testified that Perry and Burkett came into his shop the day after the killings trying to sell shotguns and a pistol. When he asked about the red Camaro and white Isuzu they were driving, Perry blurted out that “they had killed some people and stole the cars.” Burkett confirmed it and added details. Atkinson called Crime Stoppers.⁴

On October 26, Perry was arrested after a police chase in the stolen Camaro. He handed officers Adam Stotler’s driver’s license, was booked under the victim’s name, posted bond, and was released before his real identity was known. The next day, a fisherman found Sandra Stotler’s body in Crater Lake, and officers doing a welfare check at her home discovered blood and other evidence.⁵

Four days after the murders, on October 30, officers spotted Perry and Burkett in the stolen Isuzu behind a gas station. A confrontation and high-speed chase followed, during which Burkett struck a deputy with the vehicle. They crashed, fled on foot, and were captured at the Wildwood Forest Apartments. The 12-gauge shotgun used in all three killings was recovered from inside the vehicle. Investigators then located the bodies of Adam Stotler and Jeremy Richardson in the woods based on information developed after the arrest.⁴

The Confession

Perry had a deep cut on his arm from the crash and was being treated in an ambulance when Detective Carey Mace arrived. Before Mace could read him his rights, Perry said, “I know it’s the needle and I want to save everybody the trouble and just confess.” Mace then gave the Miranda warnings. Perry later gave a recorded oral statement at the hospital that was reduced to a six-page written confession he reviewed, corrected, and signed. A paramedic in the ambulance described him as “very calm,” “lucid,” and “cooperative.”⁶

Perry spent the rest of his life trying to undo that confession. At trial, he took the stand and claimed it was coerced, testifying: “I had a gun shoved in my face… I was under the influence… my condition in my mind state was that I am going to tell [the detective] anything he wants to hear to get him away from me.” Prosecutors argued the level of detail could only have come from someone who took part in the killings.²

Trial, Death Sentence, and Perry’s Background

Perry was indicted on January 15, 2002, by a Montgomery County grand jury for the capital murder of Sandra Stotler committed during a burglary. He was not charged separately for the two teenagers’ murders; evidence about those killings came in only during the punishment phase. The prosecution’s case rested on Perry’s written confession, DNA from a cigarette butt found under Adam Stotler’s body that matched Perry’s profile, blood evidence at the Stotler home, the recovered murder weapon, his possession of the stolen vehicles and Adam Stotler’s wallet, and Shane Atkinson’s testimony.¹

The jury convicted him on February 24, 2003. During punishment, prosecutors pointed to prior arrests for shooting at a house and presenting a fake prescription, along with belligerent jail behavior, to argue future dangerousness. The defense presented mitigating evidence: Perry was adopted, was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder at age 8, was twice admitted to a mental hospital as a youth, and stopped attending school in junior high. His adoptive parents filed charges against him after he stole jewelry, took their van, and vandalized a neighbor’s home. He was sent to Father Flanagan’s Boys Town in Nebraska and later to a secured campus in Mexico called Casa by the Sea. Psychologist Gilda Kessner testified that Perry’s youth was his primary risk factor and that his likelihood of violence would decline with age. The jury was not persuaded. On February 28, 2003, the judge sentenced him to death.¹

Why Burkett Got Life Instead of Death

Jason Burkett was tried separately for the same three murders and also convicted of capital murder. His jury, however, could not reach a unanimous verdict on the special issues required for a death sentence under Texas law. That deadlock produced a mandatory life sentence rather than death.⁷

Burkett later filed a habeas petition claiming innocence with affidavits from four people, including Perry and Burkett’s girlfriend Kristin Willis. The state habeas court found the affidavits fabricated and concluded that Burkett had committed perjury. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals imposed a permanent bar on future habeas filings from Burkett absent new facts unavailable earlier.⁸

Perry’s Innocence Claim and Failed Appeals

Perry maintained he was innocent through every stage of review. His central argument was an alibi: he had been arrested on the stolen-Camaro traffic charge on October 26, 2001, and he read a pathologist’s testimony as placing Sandra Stotler’s time of death on that date, meaning he would have been in the Montgomery County Jail when she died. Prosecutors responded that the pathologist had established only a minimum time since death, not an upper limit, and a federal court noted Perry could not explain his possession of the victims’ vehicles if the killings had not already occurred.⁶

Perry also blamed Burkett for all three killings and suggested Kristin Willis had been involved but was shielded because her father was a police officer. His team produced an affidavit from a fellow inmate who said Burkett had bragged about doing all three murders himself. Confronted with the DNA on the cigarette butt, Perry variously claimed the evidence was planted, that the testing was faulty, or that he and Burkett may have shared the same cigarette.⁹

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed his conviction on December 15, 2004. State habeas relief was denied in March 2006. A federal district court denied his habeas petition in February 2008; the Fifth Circuit affirmed in March 2009; and the U.S. Supreme Court declined review in November 2009.¹

The Execution

Perry filed a final round of motions in the last days of June 2010. Both the state district court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied him on June 24. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected his final appeal roughly 90 minutes before the scheduled execution.¹

He was executed by lethal injection at the Walls Unit in Huntsville and pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m. on July 1, 2010. In his last statement he said, “I want to start off by saying and letting everyone involved in this atrocity know they’re all forgiven by me.” He then sobbed, mouthed “I love you” to his mother, and whispered twice, “I’m coming home, Dad.”¹

Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon said, “Mr. Perry’s last words reflected the way he lived his life: full of hatred, bile and narcissism. I do not relish in the execution of his sentence, but I do not mourn his death.” Lisa Stotler-Balloun, Sandra Stotler’s daughter and Adam’s sister, told reporters, “When he said he forgave us, I knew justice had been served today. I needed to see if he’s a monster — and apparently he is.” She added that she wished Burkett and Kristin Willis “were here sitting beside him.”¹¹⁰

Into the Abyss and What the Case Is Remembered For

Werner Herzog interviewed Perry on death row eight days before the execution. The resulting film, Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, A Tale of Life, was released in 2011. It does not argue for Perry’s innocence. Herzog interviewed Perry, Burkett, victims’ relatives, a prison chaplain, and a former captain of the execution team who had participated in more than 125 executions before quitting because of the psychological toll.¹¹

Lisa Stotler-Balloun spoke with Herzog about her losses in the years after the murders and said she had disconnected her phone after the trial: “I figure if I don’t get close to anybody, I won’t get hurt again.”¹² Herzog, who has said he opposes capital punishment, described the film not as advocacy but as “material there for consideration, for discussion, for debate.”¹¹ He followed it with On Death Row, a four-episode series on Investigation Discovery covering additional Texas cases.¹³

Perry was the eighth person executed in Texas in 2010, a year in which the state carried out 17 executions, its lowest total since 2001, and in which new death sentences fell to eight, the lowest since the state’s revised death penalty statute was upheld in 1976.¹⁴

1
Clark County Prosecutor. Michael James Perry
2
FindLaw. Perry v. State, No. AP-74591
3
Texas Observer. Perfect Execution
4
GovInfo. Burkett v. Quarterman, U.S. District Court Southern District of Texas
5
ABC7 Amarillo. Texas Executes Killer of Houston-Area Nurse
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Your Conroe News. State’s Response to Perry Clemency Application
7
Justia. Burkett v. State
8
Your Conroe News. 2007 Forgery Halts Burkett’s Latest Appeal Attempt
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The Guardian. Texas Death Row: Werner Herzog
10
Your Conroe News. Perry Put to Death
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Tribeca. Infinite Empathy: Werner Herzog
12
Time. Werner Herzog at Toronto: Into the Abyss of Murder and Execution
13
New York Times. Werner Herzog’s Documentary Series on Death Row
14
TCADP. Texas Death Penalty Developments 2010