The man responsible for the 1998 double murder of a Houston mother and her boyfriend is scheduled for execution in Huntsville on Wednesday.
Charles Victor Thompson, 55, was convicted of murdering Dennise Hayslip and Darren Cain at an apartment in northwest Harris County.
“There’s definitely a piece of me that’s still in ’98,” said Wade Hayslip, Dennise Hayslip’s son.
Wade Hayslip was 13 years old when his mother was murdered and remembers being pulled out of class at Trinity Klein Lutheran School.
“My vice principal at the time and my youth pastor both were the ones that told me,” said Hayslip. “‘There’s been a shooting, there was one person who has been killed, your mom has been shot.’ And then I said, ‘it was Chuck, wasn’t it?’”
Dennise Hayslip started dating Thompson shortly after her 18-year marriage to Wade’s father ended. Wade Hayslip said Thompson became violent towards his mother.
“There were a couple of nights where they came home late and he was raging mad; punching holes in the wall, just upset,” said Hayslip. “It wasn’t long after that though, then I noticed the actual physical abuse on my mom.”
Hayslip said his mom stopped seeing Thompson and started dating Darren Cain. Investigators said Thompson wouldn’t leave Dennise alone and Cain eventually confronted him.
“He had a fight with Darren, he lost the fight,” said retired Harris County prosecutor Vic Wisner.
Wisner prosecuted Thompson and said the night of the fight a neighbor called the Sheriff’s Office. Wisner said a deputy arrived and found the pair sitting in front of Dennise’s apartment drinking a beer.
“They somehow made peace, shared a beer together, agreed not to fight anymore. He said he accepted the fact that Dennise wanted to be with Darren and not with him,” Wisner said.
The sheriff’s deputy made Thompson leave the complex. He returned a few hours later with a gun and broke into Dennise’s apartment.
“He shot Darren twice in the chest. Darren turned to flee, he was shot once in the back, fell on the floor, and then Thompson held a gun to the back of his head, upper part of his neck, executed him right there,” said Wisner. “From what [Thompson] told his friend’s mother, he grabbed Dennise in a headlock, forced her to look at Darren’s dying body, told her, ‘I can kill you too, [expletive],’ shot right through her cheek.”
Dennise Hayslip was taken by Life Flight Helicopter to the hospital, where she later died. During his trial Thompson unsuccessfully argued a dislodged breathing tube at the hospital is what killed Dennise Hayslip, not the gunshot to her face.
He also claimed he didn’t mean to shoot Cain, but the gun went off during a struggle. Wisner said the evidence refutes Thompson’s claims.
Wisner said Thompson’s confession to his friend’s mother after the shooting prompted him to try to hire a hitman from his jail cell. Another inmate told Sheriff’s officials about Thompson’s plans.
An undercover agent by the name of Gary Johnson was sent to the jail posing as a hitman.
Johnson’s life was the basis for the 2024 Netflix film, ‘Hit Man,’ starring Glen Powell.
“She’s a state’s witness, she’s the only witness they got. That’s kind of more important,” Thompson is heard telling Johnson on an undercover recording from July 7, 1998. “So it’s more important to kill her than to get the gun back.”
Thompson also tried to direct Johnson to the creek where he threw the gun used in the murders. Thompson is also heard on the tape complaining he paid another man to carry out the assassination, but that man took his money and did nothing.
“If I go ahead and take her out and you get out, is there a chance you could tighten me up then?” Johnson asks.
“Oh, hell yes,” Thompson said.
“OK, I’ll kill her for $1,500,” Johnson tells Thompson.
“He doesn’t have a soul, he doesn’t a conscience,” Wisner said.
After being found guilty and sentenced to death, an appellate court ruled the use of the undercover tape involving Johnson was a violation of Thompson’s sixth amendment rights. Thompson was given a second punishment trial, which also ended in a death sentence.
After his second punishment trial in 2005, and before he was transferred back to death row, Thompson escaped from the Harris County jail. He was arrested three days later in Shreveport, La. Thompson said he made it all the way to Shreveport by posing as a Hurricane Katrina evacuee.
“I’m just now starting to feel and put into words some of the things that I’m feeling,” Wade Hayslip said of Thompson’s impending execution.
Hayslip said he will witness Thompson’s execution.
“I’m just looking for accountability and the only thing he has to offer me at this juncture is his life,” said Hayslip.