Ricky McGinn

Ricky Nolen McGinn, 43, was executed by lethal injection on 27 September in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of his stepdaughter.

In May 1993, McGinn's wife left her 12-year-old daughter, Stephanie Rae Flanary, in his care for the day. According to McGinn, then 36, they drank beer together and dozed off. After she woke up, she went for a nighttime walk and never returned. McGinn said he looked for her and then called the police.

The following day, police found blood splatters and hair around the back of McGinn's car, a blood stain on the back of the driver's seat, and more blood on McGinn's clothing and shoes. Under the seat of a broken truck in McGinn's yard, officers found a bloody axe. Two days later, Flanary's body was found dumped in a culvert. She had been raped and beaten and had a fractured skull. She died of multiple head injuries.

According to DNA tests, the blood from the axe matched Flanary. DNA tests also showed that semen and pubic hair taken from Flanary's body and underwear matched McGinn. A jury, who also heard three other females testify that McGinn had sexually assaulted them, convicted McGinn of capital murder and gave him the death sentence. Afterward, McGinn was connected to the 1992 rape-murder of 19-year-old Christi Jo Eggers. DNA testing showed that semen found in her body matched McGinn, but McGinn was not tried for Eggers' killing because he was already on death row. In addition, Brown County officials suspected McGinn in the rape-murder of 12-year-old Sherri Newman.

McGinn had two prior execution dates in the year 2000. At the most recent one on 1 June, his final appeals had failed and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied his request for a reprieve. He had eaten his last meal and was about 18 minutes away from going to the death chamber when Governor George W. Bush granted an emergency stay of execution at the request of the state district judge who was presiding over McGinn's case. It was the first -- and so far, only -- time Bush has granted such a stay in 143 execution cases.

The reason for the stay was so that DNA evidence from the trial could be reexamined. McGinn's lawyers contended that DNA testing methods had advanced so much while McGinn was on death row that the evidence from the rape should be retested using current technology. If it could not be proven that McGinn raped Flanary, then the crime did not meet the legal definition of capital murder and his death sentence would have to be removed. When the DNA tests came back, they showed that semen and pubic hair found on the victim positively matched McGinn.

Despite the test results, McGinn maintained his innocence. He said, "it kind of blew me out of the water" that the DNA test was positive. "I had my stuff ready to be packed to go home," he said in a death-row interview. (McGinn would not have been able to go home if the test had been negative.) "I still want the world to know I'm not guilty. I don't care what the tests show. ... I didn't kill my little girl. I did not have sex with her, I did not rape her. I want the world to know that." Of the evidence that prove he raped his stepdaughter, he said "somebody else put that there."

Janet McGinn, the prisoner's ex-wife and victim's mother, believed in Ricky McGinn's guilt and supported his execution.

At his execution, McGinn said nothing about the crime, the evidence, or his guilt or innocence. He expressed love for his family and his belief in Heaven. As the drugs began taking effect, he sputtered and groaned slightly. He was pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m.