AP: Texas

11/11/2004

By MICHAEL GRACZYK  / Associated Press

Condemned killer Frederick McWilliams was executed Wednesday night for the fatal shooting of a man in Houston eight years ago during a car theft.

"Well, here we are again folks in the catacombs of justice," McWilliams said when asked by the warden if he had a final statement.

He said there was much he wanted to say but "not a whole to say."

"There are people that will be mad thinking I try to seek freedom from this, but as long as I see, freedom belongs to me and I'll keep on keeping on," he said. "The shackles and chains that just might hold my body can't hold my mind, but will kill me otherwise."

McWilliams then told his mother, who watched through a window a few feet away, a sister and several friends that he loved them and would never stop.

Ten minutes later, at 6:18 p.m. CST, he was pronounced dead.

McWilliams, 30, was the 22nd Texas prisoner executed this year and the second in as many nights. Two more convicts are set for lethal injection next week.

McWilliams, a former warehouse worker whose hopes for a career as an architect were derailed by armed robbery convictions, was on probation when he was arrested for the beating and shooting of Alfonso Rodriguez at a Houston apartment complex.

The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year refused to review McWilliams' case and his attorney said appeals possibilities were exhausted. A clemency petition and a request for a 180-day reprieve were both rejected by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.

"It proves to me that there is justice," Melchor Hernandez, a half-brother of Rodriguez, said after watching McWilliams die.

"I'm grateful the state of Texas has the death penalty," Richard Hernandez, another half-brother, added. "I knew this day was going to come. We're just pleased it's done with."

At the time of the slaying, McWilliams was on probation for armed robberies and had been linked to other holdups.

"I never enjoyed doing things like that," he said recently from a small cage-like cubicle in the visiting area outside death row. "I just felt in a helpless situation at the time."

Court records show McWilliams, a cousin, Richard Hawkins, and a third man, Kenneth Adams, were driving around Houston the night of Sept. 27, 1996, and discussed the prospect of stealing a car.

"We were going to use the car as a getaway vehicle for a crime the next day," McWilliams said. "My job was to steal the car."

As Hawkins dozed in the back seat of their car, McWilliams and Adams selected a 1983 Chevrolet in the parking lot of an apartment complex only to find Alfonso Rodriguez sleeping inside. They then returned to their own car. According to testimony, Adams told McWilliams he should have gotten the man and the two decided to go back, this time armed.

Rodriguez was pulled from the driver's side at gunpoint and was beaten by Adams as McWilliams rifled through the glove box. According to McWilliams, Adams and Rodriguez were wrestling and Adams dropped his weapon in the struggle. Rodriguez grabbed he gun.

"The victim rushed me. He had his hand on the pistol. I had a hand on the pistol," McWilliams said. "I don't know if he pulled the trigger or I pulled the trigger.

"The gun went off."

A week later, Adams was stopped for speeding and police found guns in his car, including one tied to the Rodriguez slaying. He told them McWilliams was the gunman, leading to McWilliams' arrest, subsequent trial and death sentence.

"I never intended to kill anybody," McWilliams said from prison.

Hawkins, now 27, received an eight-year prison term. Adams, now 26, received a life sentence.

"Not a day goes by that I don't wish I could take that whole day back," said McWilliams, whose middle name is Patrick and is known on death row as "Freddie P." Three of his upper front teeth were capped in gold with the initials P, E and E engraved in gothic letters.

It's uncertain why Rodriguez was asleep in his car that night. A half brother, Melchor Hernandez, told the Houston Chronicle that Rodriguez had a daughter, was a truck driver, worked hard, loved rock music and "never got in trouble with the law."

On Tuesday night, Demarco McCullum, 30, received lethal injection for the abduction, robbery, beating and fatal shooting 10 years ago of Michael Burzinski, 29, in Houston.

If the two executions scheduled for next week and another in December are carried out, the 25 executions for the year in Texas would be one more than in 2003. A record 40 took place in 2000.

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On the Net:

Texas prison system execution schedule: http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/scheduledexecutions.htm