DENTON, Texas (AP) — North Texas has 52 transfers on its spring roster for new coach Neal Brown, a significant turnover for the Mean Green after they won a school-record 12 games and finished the season in the AP Top 25 for the first time.
The 96-player roster released Wednesday included 44 returning players, but national passing leader Drew Mestemaker was among about a dozen players who followed former UNT coach Eric Morris to Oklahoma State. North Texas' top rusher and receiver also went with Morris to the Big 12 Conference.
Mestemaker threw for 4,379 yards and 34 touchdowns as a freshman in his only season starting for No. 24 North Texas, while Caleb Hawkins rushed for 1,434 yards and 25 touchdowns as a freshman. Sophomore Wyatt Young was the Mean Green's top receiver with 70 catches for 1,264 yards and 10 TDs.
Among the 22 transfers from Power Four schools is running back Jaheim White, who played the past three seasons at West Virginia, his first two when Brown was the coach there. He has seven career 100-yard rushing games and 2,200 all-purpose yards.
Sophomore quarterback Chris Jimerson, who attempted only two passes behind Mestemaker, is back. The Mean Green added two transfer QBs, senior Tayven Jackson from UCF and redshirt freshman Chaston Ditta from East Carolina. Jackson previously spent two seasons at Indiana after beginning his career at Tennessee and has 16 starts in his 27 games played.
At receiver, there are six portal additions, along with six returning players.
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FILE - North Texas NCAA head football coach Neal Brown speaks, Dec. 8, 2025, in Denton, Texas. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A Texas man who once escaped custody and spent three days on the run after being sentenced to death for fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend was put to death Wednesday, becoming the first person executed in the United States this year.
Charles Victor Thompson, 55, was pronounced dead at 6:50 p.m. CST following a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was condemned for the April 1998 shooting deaths of his ex-girlfriend, Glenda Dennise Hayslip, 39, and her new boyfriend, Darren Keith Cain, 30, at the woman's suburban Houston apartment.
In his final words, Thompson asked the families of his victims to find it in their hearts to forgive him, adding “that you can begin to heal and move past this.”
“There are no winners in this situation,” he said after a spiritual adviser prayed over him for about 3 minutes and shortly before a lethal dose of pentobarbital was administered. He said his execution “creates more victims and traumatizes more people 28 years later.”
“I’m sorry for what I did. I’m sorry for what happened, and I want to tell all of y’all, I love you and that keep Jesus in your life, keep Jesus first,” he added.
As the injection began taking effect, Thompson gasped loudly, then took about a dozen breaths that evolved into three snores. Then all movement ceased and he was pronounced dead 22 minutes later.
“He’s in hell,” one of the witnesses, Dennis Cain — whose son was killed — said after Thompson was declared dead by a physician.
Previously in court, prosecutors had said Thompson and Hayslip had been romantically involved for a year but split after Thompson “became increasingly possessive, jealous and abusive.”
According to court records, Hayslip and Darren Cain were dating when Thompson came to Hayslip’s apartment and began arguing with Cain around 3 a.m. the night of the killings. Police were called and told Thompson to leave the apartment complex. He returned three hours later and shot both Hayslip and Cain.
Cain died at the scene, and Hayslip died in a hospital a week later.
“The Hayslip and Cain families have waited over twenty-five years for justice to occur,” prosecutors with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office said in court filings.
About an hour before the scheduled 6 p.m. execution, the U.S. Supreme Court — without explanation — issued a brief order rejecting Thompson’s final appeal. On Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles had denied Thompson’s request to commute his death sentence to a lesser penalty.
Thompson’s attorneys had argued in filings with the Supreme Court that he was not allowed to refute or confront the prosecution’s evidence that concluded Hayslip died from a gunshot wound to the face. Thompson’s attorneys argued that Hayslip actually died from flawed medical care she received after the shooting that resulted in severe brain damage sustained from oxygen deprivation following a failed intubation.
Prosecutors had said a jury had already rejected the claim by Thompson and decided under state law he was responsible for Hayslip’s death because it “would not have occurred but for his conduct.”
Hayslip’s family had filed a lawsuit against one of her doctors, alleging that medical negligence during her treatment left her brain-dead. A jury in 2002 found in favor of the doctor.
Thompson had his original death sentence overturned and a new punishment trial was held in November 2005. A jury again ordered him to die by lethal injection.
Shortly after being resentenced, Thompson escaped from the Harris County Jail in Houston by walking out the front door virtually unchallenged by deputies. He later told The Associated Press that after meeting with his attorney in a small interview cell, he slipped out of his handcuffs and orange jail jumpsuit and left the room, which was unlocked. Thompson waived an ID badge fashioned out of his prison ID card to get past several deputies.
“I got to smell the trees, feel the wind in my hair, grass under my feet, see the stars at night. It took me straight back to childhood being outside on a summer night,” Thompson said of his time on the run, speaking with AP in a 2005 interview. He was arrested in Shreveport, Louisiana, while trying to arrange for wire transfers of money from overseas so he could make it to Canada.
Texas has historically held more executions than any other state though Florida had the most in 2025 with 19. The next execution in the U.S. is scheduled to be the Feb. 10 lethal injection of Ronald Palmer Health, who was convicted of killing a traveling salesman during a 1989 robbery in the Gainesville area of that state.
Lozano reported from Houston. Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://x.com/juanlozano70
This photo provided by Texas Department of Criminal Justice. shows Texas death row inmate Charles Victor Thompson. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP)
