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The second to last Texas 7 prison escapee who murdered an Irving police officer said his execution Thursday night is about vengence, not justice.
Patrick Murphy said he isn’t claiming innocence. He said he shouldn’t be executed for killing police officer Aubrey Hawkins during a Christmas Eve 2000 robbery while he and six other felon felons were on the lam after escaping from a South Texas prison.
Murphy, now 57, was convicted based on the controversial he “law of parties,” which means Murphy, now 57, was responsible for Hawkins’ murder because he participated in the armed robbery even if he wasn’t one of the shooters. He was the getaway driver.
“I don’t think sentencing and culpability about law of parties is about justice. I think it’s about vengeance,” he told KTVT (Channel 11) from death row in Livingston. ”
“I’m sorry. I regret what occurred,” Murphy said.
Murphy was serving a 50-year sentence for sexual assault with a deadly weapon when the escapees broke out of the Connally Unit of the Texas prison system on Dec. 13, 2000. The seven men overpowered civilian workers and a guard in the maintenance shop and then fooled a guard in the prison tower. They stole clothing, a pickup, 16 weapons and ammunition.
As of Thursday morning, there were no pending legal claims to could lead to a stay of execution, said Dallas County assistant district attorney Brian Higginbotham of the office’s appellate division. Although additional filings could be made throughout the day. Murphy has made no recent legal claim that questioned the law of parties, Higginbotham said.
The prosecution at Murphy’s trial said he radioed Hawkins’ location to the other members of the gang while he waited outside the Oshman’s SuperSports USA store, armed with four loaded guns.
“You don’t have to pull the trigger to kill someone,” then-Dallas County prosecutor Bill Wirskye said at his 2003 trial. “He’s got Aubrey Hawkins’ blood on his hands.”
But the defense fought against that notion.
“You cannot convict someone of something they didn’t want to happen,” Murphy’s attorney, Juan Sanchez, told the jury. “You just can’t find somebody guilty by association. If he’s guilty of anything, he’s guilty of robbery.”
A jury convicted Murphy of capital murder in an hour and a half.
Killing Aubrey Hawkins
Murphy was serving a 50-year sentence for sexual assault with a deadly weapon when the escapees broke out of the Connally Unit of the Texas prison system on Dec. 13, 2000. The seven men overpowered civilian workers and a guard in the maintenance shop and then fooled a guard in the prison tower. They stole clothing, a pickup, 16 weapons and ammunition.
The men committed a variety of robberies that culminated in the holdup of Oshman’s SuperSports USA in Irving where Hawkins was murdered.
The seven escapees posed as as security guards and tied up employees during the Oshman’s. They were in the final moments of the heist when Hawkins pulled up behind the store.
Hawkins had just left a Christmas Eve dinner at Olive Garden with his wife, son, mother and grandmother. He was responding to a suspicious-person call at the store.
The escapees shot Hawkins before he could get out of his patrol car. They then pulled him from his vehicle and shot him again, then drove over him.
They shot Hawkins 11 times.
After realizing the next day that Hawkins was dead, the gang fled toward Colorado and into a snowstorm. Nearly a month after Hawkins’ murder, police were tipped off that the men were at an RV Park in Woodland Park near Colorado Springs, posing as missionaries.
Three of the men, including ringleader George Rivas, were were caught in a car nearby. Two were surrounded at the RV park, but Larry Harper committed suicide rather than be captured. Murphy and another escapee were captured at a Colorado Springs hotel.
Murphy was the sixth and final member of the Texas 7 sentenced to death in Hawkins’ murder.
It was the first time since capital punishment was reinstated in the United States that six people were given death sentences for killing one man.
The woman he attacked testified at his trial for killing Hawkins that she was tied up, gagged and sexually assaulted at knife point.
Only Randy Halprin will remain on death row if Murphy is executed as scheduled. He does not have a scheduled execution date.