A man convicted of killing 2 opera singers nearly 22 years ago in Houston was executed Tuesday evening.
Derrick Jackson (left), 42, contended he was unfairly convicted by a Harris County jury of the fatal beatings and slashings of Forrest Henderson and Richard Wrotenbery. The two 31-year-old men were in the Houston Grand Opera chorus.
Their September 1988 slayings inside Henderson's apartment went unsolved for years until a bloody fingerprint from the murder scene was matched to Jackson. By then, in 1995, Jackson already was in prison serving a 12-year term for aggravated robbery.
Jackson said nothing when the warden asked if he would like to make a final statement. He never moved, staring at the ceiling of the death chamber, as the lethal drugs began, then gasped several times as they took effect.
8 minutes later, at 6:20 p.m. CDT, he was pronounced dead.
Jackson's father, who wept quietly, and 2 brothers were among people watching the execution. Carl Wrotenbery, the father of one of his victims, was in an adjacent witness room.
No last-day appeals were made to the courts Tuesday to try to block the 15th lethal injection this year in Texas, the nation's most active death penalty state. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected an appeal Monday, and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles turned down a clemency request.
In a recent interview from death row, Jackson told The Associated Press he didn't want to die but wasn't scared.
"It's more a reluctance that it had to come to this," he said. "It's like you have terminal disease for a number of years and finally they say you're not going to be able to live with it any longer so you're going to have to get your affairs together with your family and within yourself."
Jackson was arrested in 1992 for 3 robberies and took a plea bargain that sent him to prison. He was there when detectives working cold cases and using new computer databases matched his fingerprint to one at the scene of the murders.
Jackson said bad decisions led to burglaries and robberies and ultimately the prison term, but he denied involvement in the killings.
Fingerprints on a beer can, a glass and a door knob were linked to Jackson. Stains on bathroom towels matched his DNA.
"Technology caught up with him," said Bill Hawkins, a Harris County district attorney who prosecuted the case.
Hawkins said the odds against the DNA match actually belonging to someone other than Jackson were "off the charts."
Richard Wrotenbery also taught music at an elementary school in the Houston suburb of Deer Park. He'd been house-sitting at Henderson's apartment following a divorce until he could find a place of his own. Henderson had just returned to Houston after performing with the opera in Scotland.
The day of the slayings, Sept. 10, 1988, Wrotenbery and Henderson, both tenors, had been rehearsing for an opera production of Bizet's Carmen. Wrotenbery went to the apartment after rehearsals. Jackson hit some bars, may have met Jackson there and took him home.
Evidence showed Henderson was stabbed in the chest. Wrotenbery's throat was slashed. Both were bludgeoned with a heavy metal bar that could have been part of a weight set. Wrotenbery may have been asleep when he was killed.
"It's not something I look forward to," Carl Wrotenbery, 80, said before watching his son's killer die. "I feel a personal obligation. I feel this is something I need to see through.
"As father of a 31-year-old, a man expects in his old age for his children to take care of him. This was just a total shock to lose someone at that age. ... It was all for nothing. There was nothing accomplished by a crime like this."
Jackson said from prison he realized "2 people lost their lives and I feel for their families."
"I saw the pictures. It was a savage scene," he said, adding that he understood jurors had to "do something when two guys were killed like that."
But when they found him guilty, "It kind of blew me away," he said. "I didn't do it."
The men's wallets were taken along with Henderson's car. A Houston traffic officer tried to pull over the car for speeding, but the driver fled, leading police on a chase until the car crashed. The driver managed to run off and escape.
An administrator from the school district where Wrotenbery taught called the apartment manager when the teacher didn't show up for work. The manager found the bloody scene.
At least 3 other condemned killers in Texas have execution dates in the coming months.
Jackson becomes the 15th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 462nd overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982. Jackson becomes the 223rd condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas since rick Perry became governor in 2001.
Jackson becomes the 32nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1220th overall in the USA since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.
Sources: Associated Press, Rick Halperin, July 20
A view from Death Watch
by Derrick Jackson
I was asked to write an article on how I felt being on death watch.
“I AIN’T FEELING IT”!
I consider (not feeling) it a blessing, because I’m not trying to feel this shame full sickness of our society.
I do feel let down by society to a degree, but for the most part my own feelings cannot be focused on it, as I’m only one of many, whose physical existence is being threatened.
I’m in no state of denial, ignoring facts of reality. I guess I simply see death as a part of life. I don’t have a great fear of death as much as I have the feeling of incompleteness. I’m fighting an obsession with the day I’m scheduled to be executed.
As much as I would like to I can’t ignore it yet, I refuse to believe I will die on that day. I have a curious anticipation of the day after. A feeling of the beginning of an end (even if it’s not my own) effects you in one way or another.
The last days of a person’s life at times reveal a lot that’s not usually seen, sometimes it’s uplifting and sometime it’s saddening. After being on death watch for over a month now, my feelings still are not easily defined. Conflict may be the best way to describe living on death watch.
Conflicting thoughts, feelings, and emotions. Embracing a natural love for life (no matter where) yet mentally and spiritually preparing for the reality you may be murdered. Knowing that you need to be strong for loved ones as you feel their point (due to just the thought of your possible execution) but also focusing on your peace of mind and calmness of spirit is easier said than done.
Spending over 12 years on death row, I couldn’t help but to think of my possible execution and how I would feel about it. At one time I felt that I would shut down emotionally and cut everyone off socially.
I now realize that it’s not possible, it wouldn’t be fair to me or my friends and family. There is a strong possibility that this whole experience of having a date (myself ) and living on death watch isn’t even about me, but it’s one that I am definitely learning and growing from.
A statement was made here that “everyone would feel how you dictate them to feel” to an extent I’d agree. But ultimately you feel what your loved ones will feel as they choose to get through, no matter what the outcome.
If it’s within you your strength, faith, and focus surely your family and friends can draw off that positive energy, but what if for what ever reason you don’t have strength, faith, or focus. Then what happens? Then one tear leads to many more that won’t seem to stop falling and the greatest pain and sorrow is shared.
It makes one question and blame that only makes matters worse. Everyone should clearly understand that nothing lasts forever (good or bad) and good as well as bad can be found in everything and everywhere. This perspective is what gets me through here and I share it daily with others.
Many may ask what good can be found in loosing one so dearly loved?!
It’s been often said that “Everybody wants to go heaven, but no one wants to die”. That was expressed to get you thinking, but a reality that is common, is a person who lives daily in pain and suffering.
Someone you love and who you share life memories with that bring you to fits of laughter that’ll bring tears of joy, or at the very least bring a big bright smile to your face that will mean something positive to everyone who see it. The end of misery and suffering is a good thing even if death has to be the cause.
Big Al was my first close friend to be executed and I was not taking it well at all. He came to talk to me a few days before he was murdered and shared how he felt and to this day it’s still helping me. Big Al did not want to die, but he was ready and he didn’t want to keep waking up to this social sickness and torturous existence.
There have been so many more since then that I’ve fortunately been able to spend the last days of their lives with, because I’ve lived near death watch to the benefit to both them and me. I was truly able to feel whatever it was they were feeling. You definitely ride a roller coaster of emotions sharing this experience, especially since everyone will feel differently according to who they are and how they have lived.
I pray that my last days (whenever they are to be) will be beautiful one’s that will last forever (within others).
The murder aspect of it all can’t be overlooked, if that is how my death should occur, but it can be accepted when you think of other ways people die in agonizing pain and tragedy and why?
As I was given my execution date I found out a young girl of 7 or 8 years old was killed, because of the wheels her father had on his car. I definitely have lived longer than I would if I had been killed senselessly and tragically in the streets at a young age.
So very many lives have ended before mine has and I always give thanks when I pray for each and every day, because it’s only by the grace of god that I’m still here and plan to be for a very long time to come.
I would like to thank all my family and friends for their love and support through this whole sick maddening experience.
D. Jackson
Last Days
Fear and intensity can fill your 3rd eye with despair and fill your being with regret.
You become someone you do not want to be
Possibly
You question, your normal sense(s)
You try to hold on as you try to let go
You don’t have to be afraid to die for death to scare the life out of you.
If you’re lost it’s too late to find your way.
You have peace if you choose
God love(s) you, but can you feel it?
Having no idea what is next means what to you?
Can you see the beauty?
As strong as you are in mind, body, and spirit – go to go!
You want to live with everything that’s in you, but God’s will is stronger.
So do you give up and die before you’re dead?
Or do you live until you die?
Only your last days will tell!
By D. Jackson
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