Texas executes first death row inmate in 2017, 8 more in coming months

Christopher Wilkins, 48 was declared dead at 6:29 p.m. on January 11, 2017, becoming the first execution in the State of Texas for the year. Wilkins had shot and killed Willie Freeman, 40, and Mike Silva, 33, back in October 2005. This was after Freeman and an unidentified individual tricked Wilkins into paying $20 for a piece of gravel, under the belief that it was crack cocaine. Freeman was shot after he laughed about the incident to Wilkins on October 28. Mike Silva, who had nothing to do with the incident, was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.

As reported by CBS News, Wilkins already served a previous stint in prison for a federal gun possession conviction but was released in 2005. It was then when he stole a truck and drove to Fort Worth where he met Freeman and Silva. Wilkins got into the back of Silva's SUV on their way to acquire more illegal substances when he shot Freeman in the back of the head before turning his attention to Silva. Even if he dumped the bodies, Wilkins' fingerprints were found in Silva's wrecked SUV, with a pentagram carved into its hood which matches a tattoo the Wilkins had.

In 2008, during his capital murder trial, Wilkins also admitted to the murder of another man, Gilbert Vallejo, just a few days before he shot and killed Freeman and Silva. He also admitted to trying to run down two people using a stolen car because he believed one of the two stole his sunglasses. Christopher Wilkins had this to say during his at his trial "When I get wound up, I have a fuse that is short. I don't think about what I am doing. I don't care." (Taken from Chron.com's reporting on Wilkins' death penalty sentence).

There have been 538 executions in the State of Texas since 1982, the most of any state in the US, with Wilkins being the 539^th. There are 8 more inmates scheduled for execution in the early months of 2017 while only a total of 7 were executed in 2016. That number was the lowest for the state since 1996 when it had only 3. The most executions in a year were 13, back in 2011. (Source: Texas Department of Criminal Justice.)

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Texas, Deathrow, Death Penalty, Execute, TX, 2017, first, State of Texas, Christopher Wilkins

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