Stepmother killer sentenced to die

FORT WORTH - Jurors deliberated for just more than 30 minutes Monday morning in deciding to sentence Reginald W. Perkins to death for the robbery and strangulation of his 64-year-old stepmother.

Shortly after visiting state District Judge C.C. "Kit" Cooke announced the verdict, the 47-year-old Perkins proclaimed his innocence in a written letter, which his attorney Scott Brown read aloud in the crowded courtroom.

"I am sorry that I don't have an answer for the pain and suffering that we are all having, but deep down in my heart, I didn't commit this crime I am charged with," Brown said, glancing up from a piece of white notebook paper. "... I am so trapped into this justice system for something I didn't do, and I also understand that as my family, you are all suffering from the loss of a loved one and looking to release some hurting pain that is in your heart.

"But always remember that as a half brother, your mother meant the world to me. Like a real mother, she did more than anyone else could have done in a lifetime."

Perkins, standing before the judge, kept his back toward family members squeezed together in the benches behind him.

Perkins was convicted in the Dec. 4, 2000, robbery and strangulation of his stepmother, Gertie Mae Perkins.

During the trial, which lasted more than two weeks, jurors heard testimony that Perkins, a convicted felon who spent 15 years in a Cleveland prison for the rape and attempted rape of two 12-year-old girls, was also a suspect in two other strangulations in the early 1980s in Cleveland.

For jurors to sentence Perkins to death, they had to decide that he is a future danger to society and that no mitigating circumstances would warrant life in prison rather than execution.

During closing arguments, prosecutors Kevin Rousseau and Sean Colston told jurors that by law, they had no choice but to send Perkins to Death Row.

"Reginald Perkins has been destroying lives for the past 22 years," Colston said, his voice rising as he paced before the jury box. "He has been raping our children and killing our women!"

In their closing argument, defense attorneys Brown and Bill Lane asked jurors to spare Perkins' life. Although Brown conceded that Perkins is a danger in the free world, he argued that he would not be a threat in prison.

Lane, who has worked on 14 capital murder cases in which prosecutors sought the death penalty, asked jurors whether they could handle hearing one morning that the "State of Texas had executed Reginald Perkins."

"And you'll think, 'Did I do the right thing?' " Lane said. "You don't want to second-guess yourself after he is dead."

At 10:10 a.m., the jurors filed out of the courtroom to begin deliberations. By 10:43 a.m., they had reached a verdict.

As the decision was announced, tears began to trickle down a few family members' faces. One of Perkins' brothers looked at a relative and quietly pumped his arm.

The verdict did not bring any of them joy, but for many, it did bring justice.

Afterward, Gertie Perkins' daughter, Shirley Brooks, took the witness stand and addressed her half brother.

"You drove with her in the back of the car like some cheap rug all day long," she read from a victim impact statement. "You have no conscience, and, therefore, you have no heart. And since home is where the heart is, there is no place for you.

"... You not only wanted to hurt Mom and Dad, you wanted to destroy our family by cracking the foundation on which we all were standing. But Mom taught us - and tried to teach you - that our foundation is built on a rock. Mom is, and will always be, a part of the mixture, but God is the bonding element.

"And we are still standing."

Melody McDonald, (817) 390-7386 mjmcdonald@star-telegram.com