Grieving son to attend execution of mom's killer: 'It's been tough'
- - Grieving son to attend execution of mom's killer: 'It's been tough'
Amanda Lee Myers, USA TODAYJanuary 28, 2026 at 4:35 AM
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In the years since his mother was murdered by her jealous ex-boyfriend, every milestone in Wade Hayslip's life has had a void, an achingly empty space where she should be.
There was dating for the first time, graduating from high school, and becoming the first in his family to go to college. Then there was getting married and having children of his own.
With each new life event, Hayslip has the same thought.
"I wish I had advice from Mom – that affirmation that she was proud of me and she loved me," Hayslip told USA TODAY.
Hayslip was just 13 years old when Charles "Chuck" Victor Thompson barged into his mother’s suburban Houston home and attacked her and her new boyfriend on April 30, 1998. Thompson fatally shot Darren Cain, 31, and Hayslip’s mom, 39-year-old Dennise Hayslip.
Now, almost 30 years later, Wade Hayslip will be among the witnesses to Thompson's execution in Texas on Wednesday, Jan. 28. It's the first execution in a U.S. prison this year after a particularly busy 2025 for the death penalty.
As Thompson’s execution nears, USA TODAY is looking at who Dennise Hayslip was, what happened to her, and more about Charles Victor Thompson.
Dennise Hayslip is pictured with her only child, Wade Hayslip.What happened to Dennise Hayslip and Darren Cain?
On April 30, 1998, Dennise Hayslip told her ex-boyfriend, Charles Victor Thompson, that she wanted to be with Darren Cain. Thompson had gone over to Hayslip's apartment and had been drinking, according to archived news reports.
While there, the two men fought, and the cops showed up. They allowed Thompson to leave, but he returned three hours later with a gun, court records show.
Thompson busted down the apartment door and shot Cain four times, according to court records. He then shot Hayslip in the leg, presumably as she ran away, then shot her at close range in the cheek.
Thompson fled, dumped the gun in a creek, and then went to a friend's house to take a nap, court records say. The next day, he turned himself into authorities.
While Cain died at the scene, Hayslip initially survived and told multiple people that "Chuck" was responsible for the shooting, court records say. She died several days later in a hospital.
Thirteen-year-old Wade Hayslip was at school during the attack.
At trial, Thompson's attorneys argued that he didn't deserve the death penalty because he had been obsessed with Dennise Hayslip and was drunk when he committed the crime. They also unsuccessfully tried to blame Hayslip's death on the emergency room doctors who treated her.
Prosecutors at times referred to Hayslip as a "pretty boy" who was a narcissistic sociopath and became violent when angry. They also repeatedly called him "Chuckster Killer," a name they say he used in letters from prison.
Charles Victor Thompson is pictured in 2024.Who was Dennise Hayslip?
Thirty-nine-year-old Dennise Hayslip owned her own nail salon and worked six days a week as a nail technician, her son told USA TODAY. Wade's mother and father, a mechanic named Felix Hayslip, divorced in 1996 when he was 11.
Wade Hayslip, a father of three boys who now lives in Chicago and works in business development, said his family never had a lot of money growing up, but that his mom prioritized paying for private school for spiritual and educational reasons.
"There were times we knew when she wrote checks that they were probably going to bounce," he said. But somehow, his mom managed. "She worked hard and made sure we never went hungry."
He said his mother was compassionate and humble, and taught him to always look out for others. He recalled how he once told his mom that he was going to hang out with a new friend who was an outcast at school because of a severe medical condition.
"She started crying, she was so proud," he said.
Dennise Hayslip is pictured.
He also recalled a bad argument he once had with his mom. Wade Hayslip yelled that he was going to run away and then proceeded to climb 30 feet up a tree.
"Of course, I was giving her heart palpitations and she's begging me to come down, and she's in tears apologizing even though I was the one in the wrong," he said. Wade Hayslip came down nearly five hours later and was still pouting in his bed when his mom came in.
"I was mad for a completely ridiculous reason," he tearfully recalled. "Instead of trying to come at me, she came in and laid down in my bed, and we talked through it ... She was letting me know it was OK."
He said his father was also heartbroken after his mom was killed, adding that the couple was still in love but just couldn't handle living together.
"The day of the funeral, we had an alone moment while we watched them lower the casket," Wade Hayslip recalled. "We sat there 30 minutes while he just wept."
He said his dad died in 2009, a month before he would have become a grandfather. Becoming a grandparent is also something his mom missed out on. Wade Hayslip said she would have been "the spoiling type" of grandmother.
Felix, Dennise and Wade Hayslip are pictured the last time the three were together before Dennise was killed.Charles Victor Thompson gained notoriety, fans after brazen escape
As Wade Hayslip struggled with life without his mom, Thompson made national headlines after carrying out a brazen escape in 2005.
He'd been on death row for about six years when an appeals court ruled that his right to counsel had been violated. Though a judge upheld his capital murder conviction, the court ordered a new sentencing hearing.
Left alone in an attorney visitation room at a Harris County jail, Thompson somehow removed his handcuffs and then changed out of his prison jumpsuit and into khakis and a golf shirt that he smuggled in. Armed with an altered prison ID card that covered the word "offender" with tape, Thompson then posed as an investigator with the Texas Attorney General's Office and walked out of the front door of the jail, according to archived news reports.
Thompson then hopped on a freight train and traveled 240 miles northeast to Shreveport, Louisiana, where he posed as a Hurricane Katrina evacuee. He was taken into custody after authorities, acting on a tip, found him drunk and penniless outside a liquor store.
Thompson also made the news when a Houston Chronicle story reported that he had sought companionship by starting his own website not long after he landed on death row.
"I am a very firm believer that everyone needs someone in their life and I need you," Thompson wrote, according to the Chronicle. "I am a very interesting person with a lot of character and I just need someone to share that with."
Today, Thompson has nearly 400 supporters on a Facebook page called Friends of Charles Victor Thompson. The page, run by a woman in Wales who has visited Thompson repeatedly over the years, has raised 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 his content.
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As for the killings, Thompson has called them a "crime of passion." Thompson told the Houston Press in October that he shot Cain in self-defense and that Hayslip got shot in the cheek as she tried to intervene.
"There were no winners in this situation," Thompson said. "It’s tragic what happened. I regret it. I have remorse. I want people to be able to heal and move past it. I pray for them and I’ve asked them to forgive me."
Wade Hayslip refutes Thompson's repeated claims that he has asked for forgiveness and said his pain has been compounded over the years by all the press attention on Thompson and by occasional hate mail he gets from people who apparently sympathize with the death row inmate.
Quoting one recent note, Wade said that a woman told him: "Always know that your mom was a cheating whore."
Dennise Hayslip is pictured with her only child, Wade Hayslip.
"That's part of the problem with this grieving process," Wade Hayslip added. "I've mourned and grieved her loss, but it's still been an active thing because he's been so visible in the public eye. Because of his visibility, it's been tough to move forward. That has overshadowed who she was and what she represented."
Dennise Hayslip's son to attend execution
Wade Hayslip has traveled from Chicago to Houston to be among the witnesses to Wednesday's execution. He said it will not bring him closure, but that Thompson's life "is the only thing he has left to offer in accountability for the lives he's destroyed."
"It's more of the end of a chapter and the beginning of a new one," Wade said. "I'm looking forward to the new one."
Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter who covers cold case investigations and the death penalty for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Grieving son to attend Texas execution of Dennise Hayslip's killer
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