AWFUL

Aryan Gang Leader Justen Hall Executed for Strangling El Paso Woman

“It should have never happened,” he said, before receiving a lethal injection.

A former Aryan gang member was executed Wednesday evening for the 2002 murder of 29-year-old Melanie Billhartz, who was strangled with an electrical cord and left in the desert outside of El Paso, Texas. Justen Hall, who had admitted to the killing, apologized for the “pain and suffering” he caused before he died at 6:32 p.m. by lethal injection. “It should have never happened,” Hall said. “And to my mom and Morelia, I love you and I’m going to miss you all.” Hall killed Billhartz a few days before Halloween in 2002, after Billhartz and a prospective Aryan Circle member got in a fight. The Houston Chronicle reports that Billhartz wanted to call the police over the matter, but the group at the house feared police would find that they were producing meth. Murgatroyd said that Hall returned a few hours later with Billhartz’s body in his truck, and that Hall ordered him to cut off her fingers so police could not find DNA under her fingernails, according to court records.