Franklin Alix

Franklin DeWayne Alix, 34, was executed by lethal injection on 30 March 2010 in Huntsville, Texas for killing a man whose sister he had abducted and was robbing.

On January 3, 1998, Alix, then 22, abducted Karyl Bridgeford, 19, as she was exiting from her car at her family's southwest Houston townhouse. Alix forced Bridgeford into her trunk, closed it, and drove away with her. He demanded money from her and threatened to kill her. Bridgeford told him that her credit cards were maxed out and she could not remember her PIN codes, but he could take items from her home and pawn them for cash.

Alix then returned Bridgeford to her home. With his gun pointing in her face, he said, "Do you see this? Anything goes wrong in here, and I'll kill you and anyone else in the house." Alix then walked through the home and took several pieces of electronic equipment. He also raped Bridgeford.

While Alix was in the home, Bridgeford's brother, Eric, returned home with a friend. The two young men ran, but Alix shot Eric in the back, killing him. Alix then fled the area on foot.

Houston police arrested Alix on 6 January. He confessed to Eric's murder and led officers to the murder weapon. A firearms expert confirmed that the bullet recovered from Eric's body was fired from Alix's gun.

At his trial, Alix admitted to abducting Karyl and forcing her into the trunk of her car, but he claimed that his sexual intercourse with her was consensual, the items taken from her home were gifts, and that the killing was in self defense.

Alix had a prior felony conviction for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, for which he spent three years in prison from 1993 to 1996. Soon after he was released, he was back in jail on a misdemeanor conviction for carrying a gun illegally.

In 1997, Alix embarked on a violent crime spree. Most of his crimes occurred or began in apartment complexes, and several of them involved men or women being locked inside the trunks of their cars. He perpetrated at least 14 violent crimes - including 4 murders - from August 1997 until his arrest in January 1998. He killed Gregorio Ramirez on 8 August, Selemawi Tewolde on 5 October, Eric Bridgeford on 3 January, and Christopher Thomas on 4 January.

A jury convicted Alix of capital murder in September 1998 and sentenced him to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence in February 2000. All of his subsequent appeals in state and federal court were denied.

In 2006, the Houston Police Department's crime lab was embroiled in controversy after complaints of shoddy work and mishandled evidence in numerous cases. In Alix's case, lawyers argued that the crime lab failed to report at his punishment hearing that his DNA was not found on evidence from Gregorio Ramirez's murder. The appeals courts however, ruled that Alix's "long history of violence" constituted a "larger body of proof" and that one set of disputed DNA results did not undermine the jury's decision to sentence him to death.

"I just got myself caught up in a web", Alix told a reporter in an interview from death row. He said he owed a friend "a couple of thousand dollars" and was forced to turn to robbery to get money. "I wanted to do the right things in life, but I got caught up with the wrong folks."

"I killed the dude," he said, referring to Eric Bridgeford. "I wasn't trying to, but I did. When the dude charged at me, the gun went off."

"I don't want to die. I'm remorseful. But I won't apologize," he said. He denied raping Karyl Bridgeford and said that she "volunteered to give me her TV" if he wouldn't kill her.

Of his other crimes, Alix said, "I'm not saying nothing happened to those people." He admitted committing "some of the robberies", but "no other murders" and no rapes.

Karyl and her mother, Janey, attended Alix's execution, as did members of Christopher Thomas's family.

In his last statement, Alix offered an apology to the Thomas family. "I been wanting to apologize to y'all for your son," he said. "They told me not to do it in court. I wrote him a letter, but they told me that they tore it up in court." Alix admitted that he "made lots of mistakes", but also said "I am not the monster they made me out to be." He said he committed "no rapes". He also expressed love to his family. When he finished his last statement, the lethal injection was started. He was pronounced dead at 6:20 p.m.