Execution Report: Freddie McWilliams

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A jury convicted McWilliams of capital murder in September 1997 and sentenced him to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence in March 1999. All of his subsequent appeals in state and federal court were denied.

Kenneth Adams and Richard Hawkins both received felony convictions for their role in the murder. Adams received a life sentence. Hawkins was sentenced to 8 years in prison. Information on their current status was not available for this report.

Despite records and testimony showing a long history of robbery, McWilliams claimed in a death-row interview that the Rodriguez case was a one-time event, a way to raise money to pay his probation fees. He said that Adams and Hawkins were the leaders, and he only joined in. He said that he did not intend to kill Rodriguez. "We were struggling, and the gun went off and took his life. I can't truthfully tell whether he pulled the trigger or I did. My hand was on top of his hand, and his hand was on top of mine. It was a two or three-second dance of death, but it seemed to go on forever ... I'm innocent in the sense I didn't maliciously, knowingly, intentionally cause his death. I never intended to kill anybody."

McWilliams said that his life at that time was out of control. "If none of this happened, I'd have been dead at age 25," he said. "I never enjoyed doing things like that ... I just felt in a helpless situation at the time ... Life was always against me. The forces of life were against me."

"My thought, if worse comes to worse, is that my soul will go to a higher plane. I will have a choice of whether to come back to Earth or move up to that higher place," he said. "I don't know what I'll do. It depends on what's in my best interest."

"Well, here we are again, folks, in the catacombs of justice," McWilliams said in his last statement. There are people that will be mad, thinking I try to seek freedom from this, but as long as I see, freedom belongs to me and I'll keep on keeping on. The shackles and chains that just might hold my body can't hold my mind." McWilliams also expressed love to his family and friends. He was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m.

By David Carson. Posted on 12 November 2004.
Sources: Texas Attorney General's office, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Houston Chronicle.