Tiana Krasniqi, from Lewisham, South East London, has given new details of the execution of her husband James Broadnax in a Texas jail
The British wife of a convicted US death row murderer has revealed his final moments as she insists he was innocent.
Law school graduate Tiana Krasniqi, 31, was left distraught and screamed ‘I love you’ before throwing herself against the window of the execution chamber when rapper James Broadnax, 37, was put to death by lethal injection on Thursday.
Recounting the harrowing moment, she said: “His last words to me was ‘don’t give up’ and ‘I love you’, we spoke to each other the whole time he was strapped in the gurney. His head jerked back and couldn’t finish his last word and his head fell looking at me and he closed his eyes.
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“I screamed ‘open your eyes’ and told him I loved him and sorry I failed him. I dropped to the ground and they picked me up and told me I had to wait for 20 mins till he died.
“We had promised that we would look at each other and talk to each other whilst it was happening. The whole thing felt like the final destination movie.”
Tiana, who left her daughter in Lewisham, South East London, to cross the Atlantic to be with her new man, has been left angered by media reports Broadnax passed peacefully after being given a fatal dose of pentobarbital in a Texas prison just hours after the US Supreme Court denied his final appeal.
Writing on her TikTok account, Tiana added: “I watched his lips go blue, his face go blue and then his veins on his forehead appeared. He suffered. His body struggled. So what part of that did he die peacefully?”.
Tiana is convinced her husband did not commit the crime he was executed for. Broadnax was convicted of gunning down and robbing music producers Stephen Swan and Matthew Butler in a recording studio car park in Garland, Dallas, in 2008. She vowed: “I will not let this go. Texas got it wrong.”
Tiana first made contact with Broadnax in October 2024 while applying for a master’s degree in international human rights law and wrote to him as part of a dissertation which examined racial disparities in US capital punishment.
Earlier this month she revealed she fell in love with the inmate within a “few months.” She said: “We kind of realised that it was more than a study, but it was never intentional.
“It was never something where you go on there and be like: ‘Hi, let’s be in a relationship.'” Tiana added: “He’s very intelligent, very well-spoken, very respectful, he is just your normal person. Just that fact that he was on death row made the difference. Believe it or not, he does have a moral compass.”
Tiana moved to Houston and enlisted a team of lawyers to submit appeals against his execution. It meant months apart from her daughter, who remains in the UK with her father. Tiana admitted: “Nobody agrees with [the relationship]. And I don’t expect them to. Like I said, it’s not conventional. I miss my daughter. I haven’t seen her in a month. I’m probably not going to see her for another two. It is hard.”
Broadnax’s cousin Demarius Cummings, who was jailed for life without parole over the same crime, claimed he pulled the trigger. Speaking in a prison video filmed in a last-ditch bid to stop the execution, he said: “I’m really gonna tell it like it’s supposed to be told, that it was me, that I was the killer. I shot Matthew Bullard, Steve Swan.”
Lawyers for Broadnax claimed the confession was supported by forensic evidence and that Cummings’ DNA, not Broadnax’s, was found on the murder weapon. But despite a last-ditch appeal, officials pressed ahead with the execution at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, about 70 miles north of Houston.
Broadnax’s attorneys had also claimed his constitutional rights were violated as prosecutors allegedly eliminated potential jurors during his trial on the basis of race. Lawyers alleged prosecutors dismissed all seven potential black jurors, “utilising a spreadsheet during jury selection that bolded only the names of every black juror,” according to court documents. One black juror was later reinstated to the jury.
In a 1986 ruling, known as Batson v Kentucky, the US Supreme Court determined that excluding jurors because of their race violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Broadnax’s lawyers also alleged prosecutors further violated his constitutional rights by using rap lyrics he wrote as evidence that he was a violent and dangerous person. During the trial, the prosecution presented the jury with a selection of rap lyrics that alluded to murder, robbery and drugs, to make the case for execution.
But speaking to ITV’s This Morning earlier this month, Tiana said: “He had about 40 pages of rap lyrics, and when it came to the guilty verdict, the jurors had asked to see the rap lyrics twice before they made a decision to see if he was of future dangerousness. They tried to make him out as a psychopath but nobody ever evaluated him directly.”
Prosecutors had long insisted Broadnax was the gunman, pointing to his own confession. Speaking to reporters outside prison, he previously said: “I pulled the trigger.” But in a later video, Broadnax insisted that the confession was false and made when he no longer cared about his life. His legal team said he was under the influence of drugs at the time of the interviews.
Tiana has said: “He was under the influence of PCP (phencyclidine) when he was interviewed, he had only been interviewed four hours after the arrest and he had made clear to the police he was high. They did put five interviewers in front of him and he took the blame for something that he didn’t do, and he acted in a way that showed he was under the influence.
“They had excluded all African American jurors from the case until the last minute… they only added one, and within that time, there was the questioning of the jurors, and it wasn’t the most racially neutral.”
In a separate statement, Broadnax expressed regret for his role in the robbery, saying: “I wish I could show them my soul, so they could see just how sorry I am. I am very much remorseful for everything that happened.”
The case drew backing from high-profile rappers Travis Scott, T.I. and Killer Mike. But Texas officials dismissed the cousin’s confession and the victims’ families fiercely opposed any delay. Mr Butler’s mother, Theresa, said: “This so-called confession from Cummings is just a stall tactic by Broadnax’s desperate defence team. It’s all a lie.”
When asked by the warden if he had a final statement, Broadnax said: “I prayed to God for your forgiveness. Despite what you think about me, I hope to God that prayer was answered. But no matter what you think about me, Texas got it wrong. I’m innocent, the facts of my case should speak for itself. Period.”
