JUST IN: Texas Executes The Two-Dollar Killer James Broadnax — “I Was The Killer”
In the last few hours, a man convicted of killing two Christian music producers in Garland nearly two decades ago was put to death. Cole Sullivan has been following the controversial execution from our newsroom. Cole, we now know his last words. >> As he with his final breaths, James Broadnax again proclaimed his innocence.
He says Texas got it wrong. And witnesses to the execution say his wife repeatedly told him, “I love you.” as he died. The needle was already in his arm. His wife was on the other side of the glass screaming his name. Outside 80,000 people had signed a petition to stop the execution.
60 religious leaders begged Texas to wait. None of it mattered. Because in 2008, a 19-year-old looked into a camera and sealed his own fate. The problem is his cousin says he was the one who pulled the trigger. And the DNA found on the murder weapon? It wasn’t James Broadnax’s. Matthew Butler was 28 years old. He was a husband, a father, and by every account from people who knew him, a man who poured everything he had into what he built.
In 2005, he opened Zion Gate recording studio in downtown Garland, Texas. He built it from nothing specifically to give Christian artists a professional space to create. But Matthew was not rigid about who walked through his doors. He worked with secular acts, too. Anyone his friends said except what he called the wrong kind.
That boundary set everything about who he was. What made Matthew’s story even more remarkable was what came before the studio. He had battled bipolar disorder, fought through it, and built a business on the other side of that struggle. By 2008, Zion Gate was a working success. His wife, Jamie, was by his side. His two children, 2-year-old Matthew Jr.
and 1-year-old Michaela, were at home. He was 28 years old with everything in front of him. His closest friend and business partner was Stephen Swan, 26. Stephen was the son of Jean and Craig Swan. He was an audio engineer, a musician, and a producer, the technical foundation that kept Zion Gate running. He gave his personal time and money to the Texas Border Volunteers, a civilian group that supported law enforcement along the state’s southern border.
His mother, Jean, speaking at a court proceeding years later, said simply, “He was a brilliant young man. He was an engineer and a musician. It’s hard to say how good he was.” That one sentence captures what the people closest to him could never fully put into words. On the night of June 19th, 2008, both men were at the studio working late.
Nothing about that night was out of the ordinary. Now, the two men on the other side of this case. James Broadnax was 19 years old, born October 30th, 1988 in California. He had left school after the 10th grade and worked as a kitchen worker. He had no history of violent behavior.
His only prior legal issue was a minor marijuana possession charge. People who knew him described him as withdrawn. His legal team would later argue in court that he had suffered abuse as a child, and that by 2008, he was in a deeply troubled state of mind. His cousin, Demarius Cummings, also 19, carried a different record entirely, prior convictions for robbery and burglary.
By mid-2008, both men had relocated to Dallas, where they were committing small-scale robberies to support their habits. If you are new to this channel, this is where we go the full picture, the verified facts, and the details that most coverage never reaches. Subscribe now, because what happens next in this case is where everything changes. It was June 19th, 2008.
Before that night was over, two men would be dead and a chain of events would begin that would take nearly two decades to reach its end. Earlier that evening, James Broadnax and Demarius Cummings had been using PCP-laced marijuana. At some point, the two cousins boarded a dark train from Southeast Dallas heading toward Garland.
Their reasoning, as Broadnax would later stated on camera, was straightforward. They believed Garland was where the wealthy residents lived. There was no specific target. No plan beyond that. They were looking for an opportunity. Around 1:00 in the morning, they came across Matthew Butler and Steven Swan outside Zion Gate recording studio.
What happened next is one of the most studied details of this entire case. Rather than acting immediately, the two men stopped and talked with Butler and Swan. For somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes, all four of them stood outside that studio talking about music, the industry, the craft. By every account, it appeared genuine.
Then Broadnax and Cummings walked away. That departure was not a change of heart. When the two cousins tried to get back to Dallas, they discovered the last train had already gone. No money. No way home. They made the decision to go back. Cummings told Broadnax they needed to use force this time. When they returned to the studio, Butler and Swan were still there.
Cummings approached and asked one of the men for a cigarette. In the moments that followed, both men were fired upon with a .380 caliber handgun. Steven Swan sustained gunshot wounds to the head and chest. Matthew Butler was struck in the arm, the chest, and the back. Both men died on the sidewalk in front of the studio they had built together.
Broadnax and Cummings searched their pockets. $2 in cash. They took the keys to Steven Swan’s 1995 Ford Crown Victoria and left. At 1:20 in the morning, a man riding his bicycle home from work came across Butler and Swan on the sidewalk. He went directly to a nearby fire station. Firefighters contacted police. The investigation began.
Broadnax and Cummings, meanwhile, drove back to Cummings’ apartment in Southeast Dallas. At that apartment, Broadnax was openly boasting about what had happened. He pulled out Steven Swan’s driver’s license and showed it around the room like it was something to be proud of. They had been gone less than 15 minutes when Broadnax’s aunt, who had been present in that apartment, turned on the news.
The double homicide in Garland was already being reported. She recognized the details immediately. She picked up the phone and called Garland police. That same evening, officers in Texarkana, approximately 170 miles from Garland, spotted Swan’s Crown Victoria in a high-crime area of the city. A standard license plate check returned registration for a Cadillac, not a Ford.
That mismatch prompted officers to run the vehicle identification number directly. The VIN confirmed the car was connected to the Garland homicides. Garland detectives drove through the night and arrived in Texarkana at around 2:30 in the morning. Three individuals were taken into custody at the scene, Broadnax, Cummings, and an 18-year-old named Lonnie Harris.
All three were initially charged with capital murder and held on $1 million bond each. Harris was released the same afternoon. Garland Police Lieutenant Joe Horn stated publicly, “We don’t believe he had anything to do with it.” Broadnax was found behind the wheel of Swan’s car. He had outstanding warrants at the time of his arrest.
The officer who arrested him noted in the report that Broadnax did not appear to be intoxicated. That single observation would become one of the most contested details in the legal proceedings that followed. Four days after his return to Dallas, something happened that would define the next 17 years of this case. Three local television news stations were given direct access to James Broadnax while he was still in custody.
He had no attorney present. No legal counsel advising him on what to say or what not to say. And yet he talked openly, willingly, and in detail. In those on-camera interviews, Broadnax described the events of June 19th in first-person terms. He said he felt no remorse for what had happened. He said he did not want to spend the remainder of his life in a prison cell where he might cause harm to others.
He told reporters he wanted a jury to sentence him to death. And when he was asked what he would say to the families of Matthew Butler and Steven Swan, his response was two words that would be replayed in courtrooms and news broadcasts for years afterward. He said, “Forgive them.” The actual language he used was far harsher, but the meaning was the same.
Those interviews became the foundation of the state’s case. Years later, Broadnax’s legal team offered a different explanation for what those interviews actually represented. They argued that he had suffered serious abuse as a child and that by the time of the crime and the arrest, he was in a state of mind where he genuinely did not care whether he lived or died.
What the cameras captured, his attorney said, was not a cold and calculating individual. It was a deeply troubled 19-year-old who had already given up on his own life. In a later statement, Broadnax himself said, “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.
” That was not the person the jury saw in 2009. The trial took place in Dallas County under state district judge Mike Snipes. The defense led with the argument that Broadnax had been under the influence of PCP-laced marijuana both during the night of June 19th and at the time of the jailhouse interviews, that his statements could not be taken at face value because he was not in a rational state of mind when he made them.
The prosecution dismantled that argument with a straightforward set of facts. No trace of PCP was found on Broadnax at the time of his arrest. No drugs were recovered from Swan’s Crown Victoria. Nothing was found at his aunt’s apartment. And the arresting officer’s own written report stated clearly that Broadnax did not appear to be intoxicated when he was taken into custody.
On October 14th, 2009, the jury found James Broadnax guilty of capital murder for the deaths of both Steven Swan and Matthew Butler. The conviction itself was not the most debated part of this trial. What happened next was during the sentencing phase, prosecutors introduced a piece of evidence that had nothing to do with the night of the crime.
From Broadnax’s car, investigators had recovered 40 handwritten pages of rap lyrics. Prosecutors placed those pages before the jury and argued they were evidence of Broadnax’s violent nature, that the content referenced gang affiliation and violence, and that it demonstrated he was a future danger to society.
Under Texas law, establishing future dangerousness is one of the required standards for imposing the death penalty over a life sentence. The jury reviewed all 40 pages. Then they asked to review them a second time. Broadnax’s attorneys would later argue that the way prosecutors framed those lyrics was deliberately racially charged.
They described prosecutors labeling the writing as gangster rap and argued this framing was designed to appeal to bias rather than evidence. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund formally joined Broadnax’s legal team specifically to address these constitutional challenges. There was a second issue at the trial that would follow this case all the way to the United States Supreme Court.
During jury selection, prosecutors struck all seven black prospective jurors from the panel. Defense attorneys later produced evidence that prosecutors had used a spreadsheet during the selection process, one on which every black prospective juror’s name had been bolded. One black juror was ultimately reinstated to the panel.
The legal challenge filed on this basis cited Batson versus Kentucky, a 1986 Supreme Court ruling establishing that removing jurors on the basis of race is a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. James Brodnax was sentenced to death. Demarius Cummings was tried separately in 2011. He was also found guilty of capital murder, but the state did not seek the death penalty against him.
He had not given the on-camera interviews. He had not exhibited the same conduct after the arrest. He was sentenced to life without parole and transferred to the Coffield Unit in Tennessee Colony, Texas. Steven Swan’s parents, Gene and Craig Swan, attended Cummings’ trial. Gene Swan told the court her son had been a brilliant young man, an engineer, a musician, someone the people who loved him still struggled to believe was gone.
The family expressed disappointment that the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office had not sought the death penalty for Cummings as well. Two men convicted, two very different outcomes, and a question that nobody had fully answered yet, a question about a gun, a DNA profile, and which of the two cousins had actually been holding it that night.
James Brodnax arrived at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas in 2009. Polunsky is one of the most restrictive death row facilities in the United States. Inmates spend up to 23 hours a day alone in a single cell. No communal meals. No shared recreation. Just time and whatever a person chooses to do with it. Broadnax chose to change.
Over the following years, he was selected for a highly competitive faith-based rehabilitation program. One reserved specifically for inmates who had demonstrated sustained discipline and a genuine commitment to personal growth. Inside that program, he taught classes on conflict resolution and spirituality.
He worked to de-escalate tensions between inmates and prison staff. He mentored younger prisoners. The people around him, both staff and fellow inmates, described him as a different person from the one who had arrived years earlier. In January 2026, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice scheduled his execution for April 30th, 2026.
16 days before that date, on April 14th, 2026, James Broadnax got married. His wife was Tiana Krasnichi, a British-based law school graduate who had become one of his most committed legal advocates. The ceremony took place at the Polunsky Unit. The two were separated by a glass panel throughout. He referred to her as his queen.
Then 6 weeks before the scheduled execution, everything shifted. On March 11th, 2026, Demarius Cummings, still serving his life sentence at the Coffield Unit in Tennessee Colony, Texas, signed a sworn legal declaration. In it, he stated that he was the one who shot and killed Steven Swan and Matthew Butler on the night of June 19th, 2008, not James Broadnax.
Um Cummings also recorded a video statement. In it, he said, “I’m really going to tell it like it’s supposed to be told, that it was me, that I was the killer.” He explained that after their arrest in 2008, he had persuaded Broadnax to take the blame. The reasoning was that Broadnax had no prior violent criminal record, and they believed he would receive a more lenient outcome.
Cummings said he made the decision to come forward after learning 2 months earlier that his cousin’s execution date had been set. His declaration aligned with forensic evidence that had been part of the case record since the original investigation. Only Cummings’ DNA profile was recovered from the murder weapon.
Only Cummings’ DNA was found on the clothing of one of the victims. Broadnax’s DNA appeared on neither. On March 19th, 2026, Broadnax’s legal team filed the declaration in Dallas County District Court and with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. On April 7th, the court rejected the appeal. In its ruling, the court stated the claim should have been raised in earlier filings.
A concurring opinion specifically noted that Broadnax himself had never personally recanted his own on-camera statements in the years since his conviction. The clock was still running. With the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals having rejected the appeal on April 7th, Broadnax’s legal team moved on every remaining front at the same time.
They formally petitioned Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot. He did not act. On Tuesday, April 28th, legal team spokesperson Alan Ripp submitted a request to Texas Governor Greg Abbott for a 30-day reprieve, citing the new evidence as material that had not yet been fully examined. Abbott did not respond.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied the request for clemency or commutation that same day. Three separate appeals were filed with the United States Supreme Court. All three were denied on Monday, April 28th. The final application, docketed as case number 25A900, was presented to Justice Samuel Alito, who referred it to the full court.
It was denied as moot. The Texas Attorney General’s office addressed Cummings’ confession directly in its court filings, describing it as questionable new evidence. The office called the racial bias claim surrounding jury selection entirely meritless, arguing the prospective jurors had been removed based on their answers during questioning, including opposition to the death penalty and not because of race.
Outside the courtroom, the case had drawn significant public attention. Travis Scott filed his own separate amicus brief at the Supreme Court. Killer Mike, T.I., Young Thug, Fat Joe, and N.O.R.E. filed a joint brief alongside legal scholars, all arguing that rap lyrics are a form of creative expression, not autobiography, and that their use in criminal sentencing proceedings represents a constitutional violation.
The Supreme Court declined to take up the appeal. Rob Dunham, director of the Death Penalty Information Center, released a statement after the execution. He said, “This jury was unconstitutionally impaneled. The Supreme Court has just decided to look the other way.” Teresa Butler, Matthew’s mother, had a different response.
She wrote publicly, “This so-called confession from Cummings is just a stall tactic. It’s all a lie.” On the morning of April 30th, 2026, prayer vigils were held across Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, El Paso, San Antonio, and Huntsville. More than 80,000 people had signed an online petition. More than 60 religious leaders had formally gone on record calling for clemency.
None of it produced a legal intervention. James Broadnax was transferred to the Huntsville unit, the state’s primary execution facility, located approximately 70 mi north of Houston. He was the 599th person executed in Texas since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982. The third in 2026. He spent his final hours with his spiritual advisers and with Tiana.
At 3:00 in the afternoon, he was placed in complete isolation. At 6:26 in the evening, the lethal injection began. At 6:47 p.m., James Broadnax was pronounced dead. In his final statement, he addressed the families of Steven Swan and Matthew Butler directly. He told them he had prayed for years that his choices had not added to their pain. He asked for their forgiveness.
Then he said, “Texas got it wrong. I am innocent.” He told Tiana his promise still stood. Tiana Krasniqi was among the witnesses. As he lost consciousness, she pressed both hands against the viewing glass and called his name. Officials had to assist her out of the room. Seven members of the victims’ families were present, including the parents of both Steven Swan and Matthew Butler.
Teresa Butler, Matthew’s mother, said the execution was justice. This case leaves two sets of facts on the table, and they do not fully reconcile. On one side, James Broadnax voluntarily gave on-camera first-person confessions in 2008. He described the events of June 19th in specific detail. He never personally recanted those statements across 17 years of legal proceedings.
Every court that reviewed the case, state and federal, upheld the conviction. The Supreme Court specifically noted that the delay in raising new claims weakened their legal standing. On the other side, the DNA recovered from the murder weapon did not belong to James Broadnax. The DNA found on the clothing of one of the victims did not belong to James Broadnax.
Both profiles matched Demarius Cummings. Cummings signed a sworn legal declaration in 2026 identifying himself as the person who fired the weapon. Broadnax’s legal team presented documented evidence of childhood abuse and a suicidal state of mind at the time of the crime. The jury that sentenced him to death had heard 40 pages of his writing labeled in court as gangster rap.
All seven black prospective jurors had been removed from the panel during selection. Matthew Butler and Steven Swan were two men who built something real, lost their lives on a sidewalk in Garland, and left behind families who spent 17 years waiting for the legal process to reach a conclusion. Whether that conclusion was accurate is the question this case refuses to close.
What do you think? Does the DNA evidence shift the picture for you? Or do Broadnax’s own words from 2008 settle it? Drop your position in the comments below. Every week on this channel, we cover cases where the evidence does not line up cleanly, where the full picture is more complicated than the headline. If that is what you are here for, subscribe.
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