Final 'Texas 7' escapee gets death
Slain officer's mother says nightmare ending
11:09 PM CST on Thursday, November 20, 2003
Six men each convicted for the slaying of her son. Six death sentences handed down by juries.
Only now, Jayne Hawkins told Patrick Murphy Jr. – sentenced Thursday to die by injection for the murder of Irving police Officer Aubrey Hawkins – will the nightmare she relived in court six times subside.
"I don't have to hear empty defenses anymore. The wound won't be reopened as it has been every trial," Ms. Hawkins told Mr. Murphy as part of her victim-impact statement. "He lost his life because he was defending justice. Now justice has been done in this courtroom."
The jury of six men and six women took more than seven hours to reach Mr. Murphy's sentence; two cried as the foreman read it.
Mr. Murphy, 42, is the sixth and last of the so-called Texas Seven prison escapees to be sent to death row for the Christmas Eve 2000 shooting of Officer Hawkins. The seventh escapee committed suicide.
Lead prosecutor Toby Shook acknowledged that this case proved more difficult to try than the others.
"We knew it would be tougher because he wasn't a trigger man," Mr. Shook said.
Mr. Murphy did not testify during the trial. As sheriff deputies led him away Thursday night, Mr. Murphy turned backward and crossed his arms over his chest, whispering, "I love you" to his sobbing wife, Rose Murphy, seated a few feet behind him.
Judge Vickers Cunningham announced that Mr. Murphy is entitled to an automatic appeal of his trial.
Five hours into deliberation, jurors appeared stalled on whether the convicted felon's abuse as a child could be a factor that would spare him a death sentence.
The jury returned to court just before 5 p.m., seeking clarification in three areas: They wanted a definition of mitigating factors; they requested more detail on the testimony from Mr. Murphy's aunt and father who detailed his abuse as a child; and they wanted clarification on how abuse would factor into a decision for mitigation.
Judge Cunningham instructed the jury to consider three issues in their sentencing: whether Mr. Murphy is a continuing threat to society, whether he displayed intent to kill the night of the crime and whether any mitigating factors would contribute to his receiving a life sentence instead of the death penalty.
They returned two hours later, this time with a verdict. Each juror, by raising his or her right hands before the court, unanimously answered "yes" to the first and second issues and "no" to the third. Any combination of different answers would have sent Mr. Murphy to prison for life.
During closing arguments earlier in the day, attorneys employed religious references.
"You don't receive mercy for being righteous," defense attorney Juan Sanchez said, explaining that Bible scripture inspired his closing arguments. "The person who gives mercy is righteous."
When his turn came, prosecutor Bill H. Wirskye pointed to Mr. Murphy and told the jury: "He must pay the wages of sin. He makes evil choices because he's an evil man. He is dangerous no matter where you put him."
Mr. Murphy was serving a 50-year sentence for aggravated sexual assault when he broke out of prison in December 2000, less than a year before he was to be paroled.
The defense argued that Mr. Murphy served only as a lookout the night of the robbery and did not shoot the 29-year-old officer. It would be unfair to sentence a man to death for his association with others, defense attorney Brook Busbee said.
Mr. Wirskye argued that Mr. Murphy displayed no signs of remorse and understood his role as a lookout and potential assassin during the robbery at a sporting-goods store in Irving.
"He anticipated the arrival of Aubrey Hawkins, and he anticipated this," Mr. Wirskye said.
He added that Mr. Murphy's troubled youth, which included abandonment, sexual abuse and a litany of criminal activity, is not germane to his sentence.
Ms. Busbee acknowledged that her client is not a good person. But she also argued that Mr. Murphy's role in Officer Hawkins' death was "peripheral."
Not so, Ms. Hawkins later said. Mr. Murphy is a "coward" who caused a lifetime of pain and loss for her and Mr. Hawkins' fatherless son.
"The trials are over," Ms. Hawkins told Mr. Murphy, staring at him. "But you have caused a loss for us that will never go away."
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