Freddie McWilliams

Frederick Patrick McWilliams, 30, was executed by lethal injection on 10 November 2004 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of a 39-year-old man during a robbery.

On 28 September 1996, McWilliams, then 22, his cousin, Richard Hawkins, 19, and Kenneth Adams, 18, drove to a Houston apartment complex, looking for a car to steal. They selected a 1983 Chevrolet and decided to steal it, but then they saw that a man was sleeping in it. They went back to Adams' car, then after some discussion, decided to rob the sleeping man of his car. Adams and McWilliams, both carrying guns, approached the car. Adams pulled Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. from the car while McWilliams rummaged through the glove compartment. Rodriguez resisted, and a struggle ensued between him, Adams, and McWilliams. A shot was fired, and Rodriguez died from a .38-caliber slug at point blank range. Adams and McWilliams then stole the victim's car. Hawkins had already driven off in Adams' car.

Five days later, Adams was stopped for speeding. A search of the car yielded several firearms. During questioning, Adams confessed and implicated McWilliams. McWilliams was then arrested, and confessed to shooting Rodriguez. One of the guns found in Adams' car was identified as the murder weapon.

Richard Hawkins testified that he, McWilliams, and Adams were at the apartment complex to steal a car. He said that when McWilliams and Adams started beating Rodriguez, he decided that he did not want to be part of a robbery, so he drove away in Adams' car. As he was leaving, he heard a shot. A few minutes later, he saw the McWilliams and Adams driving Rodriguez's car, and they waved at him to pull over. Adams, who was covered in blood, got into the driver's seat and told Hawkins, "Your cousin wild. He wild. He shot a man."

At age 19, McWilliams was involved in the armed robbery of a pizza delivery man. He was convicted of robbery and received 8 years' probation. In September 1994, he was convicted of evading police detention and spent 10 days in jail. Court testimony showed that McWilliams was involved in at least three more robberies in September and October 1996.

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.