Nearly 30 years after killing Dennis Haislip and her new boyfriend, 55-year-old Charles Victor Thompson is scheduled to be executed in Texas on January 28th. Ms. Haislip’s son told her story to USA TODAY.
US expands death penalty methods
In modern history, most death row inmates faced one method of execution. There are now many other ways to die.
Ever since her mother was murdered by a jealous ex-boyfriend, every milestone in Wade Haislip’s life has left a painfully empty space where she should have been.
I had my first date, graduated from high school, and became the first in my family to go to college. Then he got married and had his own child.
Haislip has the same thoughts with each new life event.
“I wish I had some advice from my mom, an affirmation that she’s proud of me and that she loves me,” Haislip told USA TODAY.
Haislip was just 13 years old on April 30, 1998, when Charles “Chuck” Victor Thompson broke into his mother’s suburban Houston home and attacked her and her new boyfriend. Thompson shot and killed Darren Cain, 31, and Haislip’s mother, Denise Haislip, 39.
Almost 30 years later, Wade Haislip will testify at Thompson’s execution on Wednesday, January 28th in Texas. This will be the first execution in a US prison this year, after 2025, when the death penalty was particularly high.
As Thompson’s execution approaches, USA TODAY is finding out more about who Dennis Haislip is, what happened to her, and Charles Victor Thompson.
What happened to Dennis Haislip and Darren Kane?
On April 30, 1998, Dennis Haislip told ex-boyfriend Charles Victor Thompson that she wanted to be with Darren Kane. According to archived news reports, Thompson went to Haislip’s apartment and was drinking alcohol.
While there, the two men got into a fight and the police showed up. Police allowed Thompson to leave, but he returned three hours later with a gun, according to court records.
Thompson broke down the apartment door and shot Cain four times, according to court records. Mr. Haislip then shot him in the leg, presumably as he was fleeing, and then shot him in the cheek at close range.
Thompson fled, dumped the gun in a creek, and then took a nap at a friend’s house, according to court records. The next day, he turned himself in to authorities.
Cain died at the scene, but Hayslip initially survived and told multiple people that Chuck was the shooter, according to court records. She died a few days later in the hospital.
Wade Haislip, 13, was at the school during the attack.
At trial, Thompson’s lawyers argued that he did not deserve the death penalty because he was in love with Dennis Haislip and was drunk at the time of the crime. They also unsuccessfully tried to blame Ms. Haislip’s death on the emergency room doctor who treated her.
Prosecutors sometimes referred to Haislip as a narcissistic sociopath and a “pretty boy” who became violent when angry. They also repeatedly referred to him as “Chuck Starkiller” and allegedly used this name in letters from prison.
Who is Dennis Haislip?
Dennis Haislip, 39, ran his own nail salon and worked six days a week as a manicurist, his son told USA TODAY. Wade’s mother and father, Felix Haislip, were mechanics, and they divorced in 1996 when Wade was 11 years old.
Wade Haislip, a father of three boys who now lives in Chicago and works in business development, said his family was never wealthy growing up, but his mother prioritized paying for private school for spiritual and educational reasons.
“There were times when she wrote checks that we knew were probably going to bounce,” he says. But somehow his mother managed. “She worked hard and made sure we never went hungry.”
He said his mother was caring and humble and taught him to always look out for others. He recalled once telling his mother that he was going to play with a new friend who had been ostracized at school because of a serious medical condition.
“She started crying. She was so proud,” he said.
He also recalled a terrible argument he once had with his mother. Wade Haislip yelled, “Let’s run!” and began climbing a 30-foot tree.
“Of course I’m giving her heart palpitations and she’s begging me to get off and she’s crying and apologizing even though I was at fault,” he said. Wade Haislip collapsed nearly five hours later, still pouting in bed when his mother came in.
“I was angry for the most ridiculous reasons,” he recalled tearfully. “Instead of trying to come at me, she came in and lay on my bed and we talked about it… She was letting me know that it was okay.”
He said his father was also grieving after his mother was killed, adding that the couple still loved each other but could not bear to live together.
“On the day of the funeral, we spent some time alone watching them lower the casket,” said Wade Haislip. “We sat there for 30 minutes and he just cried.”
He said his father died in 2009, one month before he became a grandfather. Becoming a grandparent is also something his mother missed out on. Wade Haislip said she would have been a “pampering” grandmother.
Charles Victor Thompson gained notoriety among fans for his brazen escape.
While Wade Haislip struggled to live without his mother, Thompson made national headlines in 2005 when he made a daring escape.
He had been on death row for about six years when an appeals court ruled that his right to counsel had been violated. A judge upheld his capital murder conviction, but the court ordered a new sentencing hearing.
Left alone in the Harris County Jail attorney’s visitation room, Thompson somehow removed his handcuffs and changed from his prison jumpsuit to khakis and a smuggled golf shirt, according to archived news reports. He allegedly left the prison’s main entrance posing as an investigator with the Texas Attorney General’s Office, armed with a defaced prison ID card with the word “Criminal” covered in tape.
Thompson then hopped on a freight train and traveled 340 miles northeast to Shreveport, Louisiana, where he posed as a Hurricane Katrina evacuee. He was taken into custody after authorities were alerted and found him drunk and penniless outside a liquor store.
Thompson also made headlines when the Houston Chronicle reported that shortly after he was put on death row, he started his own website to seek companionship.
“I strongly believe that everyone needs someone in their life and I need you,” Thompson wrote, according to the Chronicle. “I’m a very unique and interesting person and I need someone to share that with.”
Thompson’s Facebook page, Friends of Charles Victor Thompson, currently has nearly 400 supporters. The page, run by a Welsh woman who has visited Thompson repeatedly over the years, raises money for his legal defense by posting T-shirts for sale and directing people to Thompson’s Patreon account, which requires users to pay to read Thompson’s content.
Regarding the murder, Thompson called it a “crime of passion.” Thompson told the Houston Press in October that he shot Cain in self-defense and that Haislip was shot in the cheek when he tried to intervene.
“There were no winners in this situation,” Thompson said. “What happened is tragic. I regret it. I have remorse. I hope people can heal and move beyond this incident. I have prayed for them and asked for their forgiveness.”
Wade Haislip disputed repeated claims that Thompson had asked for forgiveness, saying his pain has been compounded over the years by all the press attention he receives and the occasional hate mail he receives from people who clearly sympathize with the death row inmate.
Citing a recent memo, Wade said a woman told him: “Always know that your mother was a cheating whore.”
“That’s part of the problem with this grieving process,” Wade-Haislip added. “As much as I mourned and grieved her death, he remains very active because he was in the public eye. His public profile made it difficult for him to move on. It has overshadowed who she was and what she stood for.”
Dennis Haislip’s son attends execution
Wade Haislip traveled from Chicago to Houston to testify at Wednesday’s execution. He said while this was not the end of the story, Thompson’s life was “the only one left for him to take responsibility for the lives he destroyed.”
“It’s more of the end of one chapter and the beginning of a new one,” Wade said. “I’m looking forward to the new work.”
Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter covering cold case investigations and capital punishment for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.
