Andre Thomas

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.

Thomas was born on March 17, 1983, in Muskogee County, Oklahoma, to Rochelle and Danny Thomas.

He had five brothers, and his mother raised the children mostly by herself in Sherman, Texas, which is 60 mi from Dallas.

His mother was an alcoholic, had depression, and had been sexually abused.

When Thomas was a young boy, his home often had no running water, heat or electricity.

Other members of Thomas's family had problems with substance abuse and violence.

Ten years before Thomas was born, his uncle was fatally shot by Thomas's grandmother's husband.

Despite his domestic disadvantages, Thomas seemed to thrive for the first few years of his life.

He attended a Baptist church in Sherman.

A former Sunday school teacher described Thomas as a smart and respectful boy, who often answered her questions before she could finish asking them.

Family members said that Thomas was a curious person who enjoyed sketching futuristic cars, as well as disassembling and reassembling old cars.

He was in the gifted and talented program at his school.

When Thomas was around ten years old, his behavior changed.

He told some of his schoolmates that he heard angels and demons arguing in his head.

At one point, he said he was Raiden, a fictional character from the video game Mortal Kombat, and he appeared to be sincere in his claim.

He started drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana, which may have been an attempt to quiet the voices he was hearing.

He was placed on probation at age 12.

By the time he was 13, he had made two suicide attempts by cutting his wrists.

He had a series of arrests around age 15, including one for stealing a car.

He was placed on suicide watch after developing suicidal thoughts during a short stay in juvenile detention, but he did not receive ongoing mental health services following his release.

After Thomas had been dating Laura Boren (born November 7, 1983 ) for several years, she became pregnant and gave birth in August 1999 to a baby they named Andre Jr., after which Thomas dropped out of school in ninth grade, earned a high school equivalency diploma, and worked several jobs so that he could support Boren and the baby.

He married Boren on his 18th birthday in 2001; she was 17.

Thomas and Boren lived together briefly at Thomas's mother's house.

Two weeks after they got married, Thomas's mother forced them to move out of her house.

At that point, Boren and her son moved in with her parents, while Thomas moved in with one of his brothers.

Boren and Thomas separated about four months into their marriage.

Boren later moved in with a new boyfriend, and they had a child, Leyha Hughes, in February 2003.

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.