Execution Report: William Kitchens

Wiliam Joseph Kitchens, 37, was executed by lethal injection on 9 May 2000 in Huntsville, Texas, for the rape, murder, and robbery of a 25-year-old woman.

In May 1986, Patricia Leann Webb went out with ten or eleven other women from her office in Abilene for a party on a Friday afternoon. The women first went to a restaurant, then to a nightclub. At about 9:30 p.m., they went to another nightclub -- the Silver Bullet --, with some of them leaving their cars at the first one. While at the Silver Bullet, William Kitchens, then 23, saw the women and talked and danced with several of them. When the ladies left to go back to the first nightclub, where their cars were, Kitchens, who had taken a taxi, rode with them. Back at the first nightclub, the group dispersed. Webb announced to the group that she was giving Kitchens a ride home.

After Webb and Kitchens arrived at his motel room, he raped her. He then forced her at gunpoint to drive them together to a secluded area outside of town. There, he beat her, strangled her, and shot her in the head with a .22-caliber pistol. Kitchens left Webb's body in the woods, and stole her money, checkbook, credit cards, and her white Pontiac Fiero. The murder occurred some time after 1:00 a.m. on Saturday, 17 May 1986.

At 3:00 a.m. on 18 May, police in Oklahoma saw a white Fiero speed off from a traffic signal. The officer pursued the car at speeds of up to 90 mph for about two miles, then lost sight of it for awhile. The officer soon found the car stuck in a ditch and abandoned. A driver's license, checkbook, and some credit cards belonging to Patricia Webbb were found inside it. The officer also found a blood-stained shirt nearby.

Kitchens was later seen at a party, without a shirt and carrying a gun. He said that he wrecked his car while being chased by the police. He then announced that he was going to his parent's house. Police arrested Kitchens at his parents' house. He confessed to the rape, murder, and robbery of Patricia Webb and gave police directions to her body.

At Kitchens' trial, Webb's friends said that Webb was happily married and was not the type of person who would have an intimate encounter with a stranger. They said that at the Silver Bullet, they saw no indication that Webb was interested in Kitchens nor that they had "paired off" in any way. Kitchens said that, on the night of the crime, he was drunk and believed that Webb was his wife.

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