Execution Report: Gregory Wright

Gregory Edward Wright, 42, was executed by lethal injection on 30 October 2008 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder and robbery of a woman in her home.

In 1997, Donna Vick saw Wright, a homeless man, standing on a street corner, holding a cardboard sign offering to work for food. Vick befriended Wright, then 31, giving him food, clothing, and money, and even allowing him to stay with her at times in her home in DeSoto, a suburb of Dallas.

On the night of 20 March, Wright introduced another homeless man, John Adams, to Vick. After spending some time at a club, Wright and Adams got a ride to Vick's home. There, Vick made both of them sandwiches and told Adams to help himself to the refrigerator, the bathroom, and a spare bedroom. Vick then went to bed. She was stabbed to death in her bedroom in the early morning of 21 March. Wright, then 31, and Adams, 33, stole a television, microwave oven, rifle, and other items from her home. They also stole her car.

The next day, Adams turned himself in to police and assisted in recovering the victim's car, which he and Wright had abandoned in Lancaster, another Dallas suburb. On the steering wheel, police found blood which DNA tests showed belonged to Wright. At the house, police found Vick's body on her bed and Wright's bloody fingerprint on her pillowcase. Adams also led police to a shack where Wright sometimes stayed, and he was arrested there. Police found a pair of bloody blue jeans, and, outside the shack, a bloody knife. DNA tests established that the blood on the jeans and knife was Vick's. Police also found gold paint on the jeans, and several cans of gold spray paint in the shack.

Adams then led police to a vacant lot, where another bloody knife was found. That blood was also matched to the victim.

Llewelyn Mosley, whose home was near the vacant lot where the second bloody knife was found, testified that on the night of the murder, Wright and Adams drove up to his home in Vick's car to purchase cocaine from a drug dealer who was staying with him. Mosley testified that Wright and Adams told him they had some things from a woman in DeSoto that they wanted to get rid of. After Wright negotiated a purchase with the dealer, he and Adams exchanged "high fives."

A medical examiner testified that more than one knife could have been used to kill the victim.

Further testimony showed that Wright was known to inhale spray paint to get high.

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