Execution Report: Ricky Blackmon

Ricky Don Blackmon, 41, was executed by lethal injection on 4 August 1999 in Huntsville, Texas for the robbery and murder of a 26-year-old man.

In 1987, Blackmon, then 29, and his girlfriend, Donna Mae Rogers, 24, were living out of his 8-year-old Oldsmobile Cutlass in Dallas. In need of money, they drove to Shelby County, an area Rogers was familiar with, on Saturday, 28 March 1987 to rob a liquor store. When they found the store closed, then decided to rob an old acquaintance of Rogers's, Carl Rinkle.

Rogers found Rinkle, 26, in a private club and lured him to his house. She planned to knock him unconscious and steal his cash while Blackmon waited outside, but after she entered the house, she came back out to tell Blackmon she was unable to knock Rinkle out. She then went back inside. Blackmon then looked through a bedroom window and saw Rogers, nearly naked, with Rinkle, who was completely naked, on the bed. Enraged, Blackmon, a former millworker, then broke into the house wearing a black-hooded ninja outfit and hacked Rinkle to death with a 3-foot sawtooth-edge steel sword that he made from a sawmill blade. The couple then stole a pistol, a 1922 silver dollar, some rings, cowboy boots, and approximately $700 in cash.

The victim's skill and throat were slashed. He was also stabbed 21 times in the back.

Rogers had been seen with the victim on the night of the murder. She was arrested first. She led police to Blackmon, who was arrested in Dallas while working as a cook in a restaurant.

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