This undated photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice
shows death row inmate James Bigby. Bigby, who was convicted of killing
a father and his infant son during a murder rampage on Christmas Eve
1987 that also left two other people dead nearly three decades ago, is
scheduled to be executed Tuesday evening March 14, 2017, in Texas.
(Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP)
HUNTSVILLE,
Texas (AP) — Texas executed on Tuesday a man convicted of the 1987
killings of a father and his infant son and who three years later at his
capital murder trial grabbed a loaded gun from a drawer in the
courtroom and tried to attack the judge.
James Bigby, 61, became the fourth inmate in Texas and the sixth nationally to be executed by injection this year.
Strapped
to the death chamber gurney, Bigby looked directly at six relatives of
his victims watching through a window a few feet from him and repeatedly
said he was sorry.
"I
hope this will bring you peace and I'm sorry for all the pain and
suffering," he told them, his voice cracking at times. "I hope that you
could forgive me, but if you don't, I understand. I don't think I could
forgive anyone who would have killed my children."
As
the lethal dose of pentobarbital began, he prayed and said several
times: "I promise, I'm sorry." He was singing "Jesus Loves Me" as the
drug took effect, took a few breaths, started snoring and then stopped
all movement.
Fourteen minutes later, at 6:31 p.m., he was pronounced dead.
Bigby
was condemned for the fatal shooting of Michael Trekell, 26, and
suffocation of Trekell's 4-month-old son, Jayson, at their home in
Arlington on Christmas Eve 1987. Evidence showed Bigby also was accused
but not tried for killing two other men, believing they along with
Trekell were conspiring against him in a workers' compensation case he
filed against a former employer.
Trekell's
sister and the child's aunt, Deborah Trekell-Jameson, released a
statement following the execution saying she witnessed Bigby's death not
to judge him, but to "support the completion of what James Bigby began
with my family almost 30 years ago ... when he committed such a heinous
crime.
"This day will be yet another remembrance in the history that was forever changed by James Bigby for our families," she said.
Bigby
was arrested after a police standoff days after the killings, telling a
SWAT officer in Fort Worth, "I know I am guilty, and so do you."
The
U.S. Supreme Court in 2015 refused to review Bigby's case after a lower
federal appeals court had rejected appeals. He asked that no last-day
appeals be filed for him.
At
his 1991 capital murder trial in Fort Worth, Bigby grabbed a loaded gun
from behind District Judge Don Leonard's bench during a court recess
and barged into Leonard's chambers. The judge and a prosecutor wrestled
Bigby to the floor and pulled the gun away and the judge continued
presiding over the case.
Jurors
were told about the attack, rejected Bigby's insanity defense and
decided he should die. Then in 2005, a federal appeals court threw out
his death sentence, saying the trial jury wasn't properly instructed
during punishment.
Three years later, another Tarrant County jury returned him to death row.
"I
don't think anyone in the courtroom claimed he wasn't mentally ill, but
there were too many dead people and a dead baby," Wes Ball, one of
Bigby's defense lawyers at the new punishment trial, recalled Monday.
"And going up and getting the judge's gun out of his drawer in court and
going at him ... is kind of the icing-on-the-cake moment."
Bigby
was never tried for the killings of Calvin Crane Jr., 38, in nearby
Fort Worth, and Frank Johnson, 33, in Arlington. Both were shot at their
homes.
Court
documents show Bigby, who had worked as an auto mechanic and had two
previous prison stints for burglary, believed they and Trekell were
conspiring against him in his workers' compensation lawsuit against a
former employer, Frito Lay Inc., where he worked in a body shop.
In
his statement to police he described how he shot Trekell with a shotgun
while the man was at a kitchen table preparing steaks, then went to the
infant's room and wrapped the child's head with cellophane he took from
a refrigerator, suffocating him. Bigby then filled a bathroom sink with
water and put the baby face-down into the water.
"I regret killing the baby but not the other," Bigby told police.
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