HUNTSVILLE, Texas – Blaine Keith Milam, 36, was executed by lethal injection on Thursday evening at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the brutal 2008 hammer-beating death of his girlfriend’s 13-month-old daughter, Amora Carson. The horrific nature of the crime, which Milam and the child’s mother initially tried to blame on demonic possession, shocked the East Texas community of Rusk County and led to a capital murder conviction that has now been carried out nearly 17 years later.

Strapped to the gurney in the death chamber, Milam directed his final words not to the family of the child he murdered, but to his own supporters and to a wider audience, speaking of religious redemption. His lengthy final statement thanked his supporters for their kindness and compassion, credited a prison chaplaincy program with helping him find Jesus Christ, and implored all those listening to accept Jesus as their savior so they could meet again.

He was pronounced dead at 6:24 p.m. Central Daylight Time, 16 minutes after a lethal dose of pentobarbital was administered. Milam’s execution is the seventh in Texas this year and marks the final chapter in a gruesome case that has wound its way through the state and federal court systems for over a decade and a half.

The Final Moments

As the execution hour approached, Blaine Milam was transported from the Polunsky Unit, where Texas’s male death row inmates are housed, to the Huntsville Unit, known as “The Walls.” In the execution chamber, with witnesses looking on from adjacent rooms, he was given the opportunity to make a final statement.

His last words were calm and focused on faith:

“I would like to give a special thanks to all of you for showing me kindness, compassion, empathy, love, and support and believing in me. Thank you for everything that y’all have done. I would also like to thank the directors of chaplaincy of TDCJ for opening up the faith-based program on death row and allowing me to be accepted into it to find Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. And if any of you would like to see me again, I implore all of you, no matter who you are, to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and we will meet again. I love you all; bring me home, Jesus.”

As the lethal drug began to flow, Milam took several deep breaths and then fell silent. He never acknowledged the Carson family or expressed remorse for the murder of Amora. No members of the victim’s family were present to witness the execution.

The Crime: The Unspeakable Murder of Amora Carson

To understand the sentence carried out on Thursday, one must revisit the horrific events of December 2, 2008. On that day, paramedics and Rusk County sheriff’s deputies were called to a home where they found the lifeless body of 13-month-old Amora Carson. The child had been subjected to an almost unimaginable level of violence. An autopsy would later reveal that she had 24 human bite marks on her body, a fractured skull, a fractured arm and leg, and severe internal injuries. Her death was caused by blunt force trauma to the head, inflicted by a hammer.

Initially, Blaine Milam and Amora’s mother, Jessica Carson, told investigators a bizarre and fabricated story. They claimed that Amora had become possessed by a demon and that they were performing an exorcism on the child to cast it out. They maintained that the injuries were the result of the demonic entity harming the child from within.

This story quickly unraveled. Investigators found no evidence to support the supernatural claims but found overwhelming evidence of a brutal, hours-long assault. The bite marks on the child’s body were matched to both Milam and Jessica Carson. The focus of the investigation soon centered on Milam as the primary perpetrator of the fatal violence. Jessica Carson, who was also charged, later agreed to testify against Milam in exchange for a lesser sentence. She would eventually be sentenced to life in prison for her role in her daughter’s death.

Prosecutors argued that the couple, who were known to use drugs, were frustrated by the child’s crying and that Milam, in a fit of rage, subjected the helpless toddler to a merciless and fatal beating.

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The Long Path to Justice: Trial and Years of Appeals

 

Blaine Milam’s capital murder trial began in 2010 and was moved from Rusk County to adjacent Smith County due to the intense pre-trial publicity. The evidence presented by the prosecution was gruesome and overwhelming. Jurors were shown autopsy photos detailing the horrific extent of Amora’s injuries. Jessica Carson testified against Milam, describing him as the one who repeatedly struck her daughter with a hammer.

Milam’s defense attorneys argued that he was innocent and that Jessica Carson, who they portrayed as an unfit mother, was the sole person responsible for her daughter’s death. They pointed to the fact that her bite marks were also on the child’s body as proof of her culpability.

The jury was not convinced. They found Blaine Milam guilty of capital murder. During the punishment phase of the trial, prosecutors argued that the “heinous, cruel, or depraved” nature of the crime warranted the death penalty. The jury agreed, and on May 10, 2010, Blaine Milam was formally sentenced to death.

His conviction began a nearly 17-year-long appeals process. His appellate attorneys filed numerous state and federal appeals on several grounds:

• Ineffective Assistance of Counsel: They argued that his original trial lawyers had failed to present a sufficient defense.
• Intellectual Disability: A key pillar of his later appeals was the claim that Milam was intellectually disabled and therefore constitutionally ineligible for the death penalty under the 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Atkins v. Virginia. His lawyers presented evidence of low IQ scores and adaptive deficits, but state and federal courts repeatedly rejected this claim, finding that he did not meet the legal criteria for such a diagnosis.
• Jury Issues: Other appeals focused on alleged errors in jury selection and instructions.

Each appeal was systematically denied, with the courts upholding both his conviction and his death sentence. After his final appeal was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year, the state of Texas set his execution date for September 25, 2025.

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A Final Message of Redemption

 

The final words of a condemned inmate often provide a haunting and controversial window into their state of mind. Blaine Milam’s lengthy, faith-focused statement is a stark example of this. His message was one of a man who believed he had found spiritual salvation, even as he was about to pay the ultimate price for his earthly crimes.

His praise for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) faith-based programs on death row highlights a little-known aspect of life in the Polunsky Unit. These programs, run by chaplains and volunteers, offer religious study and counseling to inmates, and for some, they become a central part of their existence as their execution dates near.

However, the complete absence of any apology or expression of remorse for the brutal murder of a helpless child will likely be the most remembered part of his final moments. For the public and the family of Amora Carson, his appeal for others to find Jesus so they could “meet again” may ring hollow when contrasted with the unmitigated horror of his crime. It raises timeless questions about the nature of justice, forgiveness, and whether a person can truly find redemption without first atoning for their sins.

The execution of Blaine Keith Milam brings a legal and procedural end to the tragic case of Amora Carson. But for those who remember the bright-eyed toddler whose life was so brutally extinguished, the pain and the memory of the injustice done to her will endure.