Frank Garcia

Frank Martinez Garcia, 39, was executed by lethal injection on 27 October 2011 in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of his wife and a police officer during an argument.

On 29 March 2001 in San Antonio, Jessica Garcia, 21, called her stepmother, Sylvia Duran, and said she was ready to leave the home she was sharing with her husband, Frank, then 28, their two children, 5 and 2, and Frank's parents. Duran came to pick her up, bringing Jessica's uncle and aunt, John and Rosario Luna.

Meanwhile, Frank's mother, Eustacia Garcia, 68, called her son at work to alert him that Jessica was attempting to leave with the children. He rushed home to stop her.

When Duran and the Lunas arrived, Jessica came outside. Frank then rushed up, grabbed his wife in a headlock, and dragged her inside.

San Antonio police officer Hector Garza, 48, arrived at the house. It was his second visit to the home that morning. He went inside and entered the bedroom where the couple was arguing. When he attempted to separate them, Garcia, who had his back to Garza, suddenly spun around and shot him in the head with a Mac-10 semiautomatic handgun. He then shot Jessica six times, killing her. He then went outside, firing wildly until he was out of ammunition. He went back inside, picked up an AK-47 rifle, and shot Garza again as he lay on the ground. He then went outside again and continued shooting. One of his shots missed the vice-principal of the local elementary school and struck the school door. He shot at and missed another bystander and hit some parked cars. He chased after John Luna, shooting him and wounding him in the leg.

Robert Carter, Garza's partner, was the first police officer to respond to the shooting. When Garcia saw Carter, he dropped the AK-47, raised his hands, and shouted, "I give up."

Garcia confessed to the killings in a written statement. He said he shot Garza in the head because he knew officers wore protective vests. "When I shot, I aimed for his head and that's where I hit him," he said. "I don't know how many times I shot my gun. I just turned real fast. I saw the officer go down. The officer never had his gun out that I noticed." Garcia said he then "went crazy", turned toward his wife, and shot her.

"I could have killed a lot more," he told detectives.

Garcia also stated that he had shaken and hit Jessica during an argument the previous night.

He said that after the shootings, "I was thinking that I would let the officers that showed up kill me."

Garcia had no prior criminal convictions, but he had shown a pattern of abusive and violent behavior. In December 1994, Jessica, then 15, went to the Battered Women's Shelter after Garcia assaulted her. One of her co-workers testified seeing marks and bruises on Jessica on "six or seven" occasions.

Sylvia Duran testified that about three months before the shootings, Jessica's waist-length hair had been cut short, up to the base of her neck. Jessica told her this was so Frank couldn't drag her around by her hair when he attacked her.

Garcia had also threatened to kill a neighbor in 2000.

A jury convicted Garcia of capital murder in February 2002 and sentenced him to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence in January 2004. All of his subsequent appeals in state and federal court were denied.

Eustacia Garcia was charged for instigating the incident by calling her son to the house, knowing of his violent behavior. She pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide and was sentenced to a year in prison. Information regarding time served was not available for this report.

At his execution, Garcia shouted "Thank you, Yahweh" repeatedly until he lost consciousness. He was pronounced dead at 7:02 p.m.