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Thread: Michael Anthony Rodriguez - Texas Execution - August 14, 2008 (Volunteer)

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    Michael Anthony Rodriguez - Texas Execution - August 14, 2008 (Volunteer)


    Police Officer Aubrey Hawkins




    Facts of the Crime: On December 24, 2000, in Irving, Rodriguez and six co-defendants fatally shot Irving Police Officer Aubrey Hawkins, 31, while on escape from the Texas Correctional Connally Unit.

    Accomplices Joseph Garcia, Randy Halprin, Patrick Murphy, Donald Newbury and George Rivas were all sentenced to death.

    Accomplice Larry Harper committed suicide on January 22, 2001 to avoid capture.

    For more on Garcia, who was executed on December 4, 2018, see: http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/...exas-Death-Row
    For more on Halprin, see: http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/...=randy+halprin
    For more on Murphy, see: http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/...k+murphy+texas
    For more on Newbury, who was executed on February 4, 2015, see: http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/...=joseph+garcia
    For more on Rivas, who was executed on February 29, 2012, see: http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/...t=george+rivas

    Rodriguez was sentenced to death in Dallas County in May 2002.

    He had originally been sent to prison out of Bexar County in 1995 for hiring Rolando Ruiz to murder his wife, 29-year-old Theresa Rodriguez, on July 14, 1992. Rodriguez was shot once in the head in the garage of her home as she stepped from her car. Michael Rodriguez and brother-in-law, Mark Rodriguez, had paid Ruiz $2,000 to kill her, apparently so Michael Rodriguez could collect on life insurance policies totaling $250,000.

    Ruiz was sentenced to death in Bexar County in 1995 and executed on March 7, 2017. For more on Ruiz, see: http://www.cncpunishment.com/forums/...exas-Death-Row

    Victim: Aubrey Hawkins

    Time of Death: 6:30 pm

    Manner of Execution: Lethal Injection

    Last Meal: Spicy fried chicken breast, grilled pork steak with grilled onions, a bacon cheeseburger with everything, a fresh garden salad with French dressing and French fries with ketchup

    Final Words: “Yes, I do. I know this in no way makes up for all the pain and suffering I gave you. I am so, so sorry. My punishment is nothing compared to the pain and suffering I have caused. I hope that someday you can find peace. I am not strong enough to ask forgiveness because I don’t know if I am worthy. I realize what I’ve done to you and the pain I’ve given. Please Lord forgive me. I have done some horrible things. I ask the Lord to please forgive me. I have gained nothing, but just brought sorry and pain to the wonderful people. I am sorry - so, so sorry. To the Sanchez family who showed me love and to the Hawkins family, I am sorry. I know I have affected them for so long. Please forgive me. Irene [his spiritual advisor], I want to thank you for being with me on Death Row and walking with me and helping me find Christ’s love. These last few steps I must walk alone. Thank you and thank your husband, Jack. I’ll be waiting for you. I am so sorry. To these families, I ask forgiveness. Father God, I ask you, too, for your forgiveness. I am ready to go Lord. Thank you. I am ready to go." He begin to sing the following few words before the drugs took effect: "My Jesus, my savior there is none like you. All of my days I want to praise, let every breath. Shout to the Lord. Let us sing."

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    August 14, 2008

    "Texas Seven" member Michael Anthony Rodriguez executed

    Michael Anthony Rodriguez wanted to die, and shortly after 6:30 this evening he got his wish.

    The 45-year-old is the first member of the Texas Seven to be executed. The infamous band of convicts killed an Irving police officer in December 2000, about a week after their escape from prison.

    Mr. Rodriguez had asked that there be no further appeals in his case, telling a judge that he hoped accepting his fate might help him enter heaven.

    “Judge, I have changed immensely since coming to death row,” Mr. Rodriguez wrote in 2006, “and realize my punishment is just and I wish to be accountable.”

    Before escaping from a South Texas prison with six other convicts, Mr. Rodriguez had been serving a life sentence for paying a hit man $2,000 to kill his wife in 1992. He lured her to her death, prosecutors said, by holding her hand minutes before the triggerman shot her in front of him.

    On Christmas Eve 2000, about a week after overpowering workers at the maximum-security prison, the Texas Seven had made there way to Irving.

    Officer Aubrey Hawkins had interrupted a holiday dinner with family to respond to a robbery at a sporting goods store. The escapees perforated his squad car with at least 20 bullets. Mr. Rodriguez then pulled the 29-year-old husband and father from the car and stole his gun.

    Mr. Rodriguez attended a Catholic high school in San Antonio. Defense attorneys argued that sexual abuse by a teacher there – as well as a lifelong effort to conceal his homosexuality from a rigidly religious family – may have spurred his criminal behavior.

    But that was all a lie, he told The Associated Press recently.

    "I felt so horrible, the depth of evil I fell into," he said. "That whole thing, then going gay, that was a lie. It's not true. We just had to come up with something."

    He took classes at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos and has testified that he is a college graduate.

    Before he murdered his wife, Theresa, they appeared happily married. She sold insurance; he ran a small cafe. They lived in a nice house and drove a Mercedes.

    While on death row, Mr. Rodriguez claimed a religious conversion. In recent years, he has sent letters to judges requesting that there be no further appeals in his case. And he apologized in a letter to Officer Hawkins' mother, Jayne Hawkins, who has since died of cancer.

    Ms. Hawkins attended the trials of Mr. Rodriguez and the others, and spoke angrily toward them when given the chance.

    "Aubrey faced each one of you, and I will face each one of you," she once said.

    But she declined to say, when asked by a reporter, whether she wished death upon them.

    "I'm not a vengeful person," she said. "The only peace of mind would be for Aubrey to be here. There's no justice that can be done."

    In a 2006 letter, Mr. Rodriguez told her he realized he owed her a debt he could never repay.

    "Yet I can indeed offer a form of retribution to at least give you a sense of justice," he wrote.

    A federal judge approved his request to end his appeals Sept. 27, two days after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider a claim by Kentucky inmates that lethal injection there is inhumane. That case stalled executions around the nation until April, when the high court cleared the way for them to resume.

    http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont....48c7d872.html

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