Associated Press Writer

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) - It was a smoke alarm that brought emergency workers to a Beaumont massage therapy clinic, but when they arrived they discovered no evidence of a fire.

Instead, they found two women, both fatally shot.

A former clinic patient, Richard Dinkins, faced execution Wednesday night for their deaths. His appeals were exhausted and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles this week refused to spare him from becoming the fifth Texas inmate to receive lethal injection this year and the second of three on consecutive evenings this week.

Dinkins, 40, contended the gun "just went off" during a struggle that left clinic owner and nurse Katherine Thompson, 44, dead.

Prosecutors say the shooting moments later of the second woman, Shelly Cutler, 32, convinced them and jurors almost 11 years ago that Dinkins should go to death row.

"The thing that stands out is the murder of the second victim," said Paul McWilliams, who prosecuted Dinkins for the double slaying Sept. 12, 1990.

"That's not to diminish in any way what Katherine Thompson went through, but I guess it's one thing to know that someone is trying to kill you."

Evidence showed Cutler, an Idaho-based traveling nurse who was filling out paperwork as a prospective patient when gunfire erupted, ran to an office, closing the door behind her.

"We believe she was trying to call 911, and he reached through the window and shot her," McWilliams said. "What she must have gone through!"

"I saw someone out of the corner of my eye after Ms. Thompson was shot and I heard the door rattling," Dinkins said last week in an interview. "I didn't know who was there. I could see someone with something in their hand.

"I shot at the door knob to keep whoever was back there from coming out. I didn't know I hit her. It looked like they had ducked."

Dinkins then fled, and the smoke from the gunfire was believed to have tripped the alarm.

"When I left there, it was all a blank," he said.

Detectives found Dinkins' name in Thompson's appointment book. He had been a patient but paid Thompson with bad checks. Dinkins contended he went to the clinic to resolve the check dispute but an argument erupted, the two wrestled and his .25-caliber pistol, hidden in a sling over his arm, fell out.

"She grabbed and I reached, too," he said last week. "I probably scared her. It just went off. I wasn't thinking right, I'm sure."

The gun then jammed but he had another pistol, a .357-caliber Magnum, concealed in a boot.

Both women were shot in the head with the larger weapon. Thompson died shortly after the shooting. Cutler, who had been in Beaumont only nine days, died the following day.

Dinkins lived in nearby Sour Lake and worked as a machinist for a company that made fire hydrants and water valves. He confessed to authorities.

"It was my fault," Dinkins said last week. "I guess you just say -- stupidity."

Police matched his gun to the killings and blood on his clothing to the victims.

"I can't be bitter," he said. "I'm the one who put myself in this situation."

On Tuesday night, Alva Curry was executed for killing a convenience store clerk in Austin. The punishment was delayed about two hours until the U.S. Supreme Court rejected late appeals. Another convicted murderer, Granville Riddle, was set to die Thursday for killing a man during a burglary in Amarillo.