According to court documents John Moody was recently released from prison and Maureen Maulden had hired him to do lawn work. Moody would break into the home of the seventy seven year old woman who would be sexually assaulted and murdered
John Moody was arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
John Moody would be executed by lethal injection on January 5 1999
John Moody Photos
John Moody Case
A former handyman has been executed at Huntsville for the sexual assault and murder of an elderly West Texas woman. John Glenn Moody was declared dead at 8:33 p.m. today after receiving a lethal injection for the July 3, 1988, slaying of 77-year-old Louise Mauldin in her Abilene home.
Moody issued a statement saying: ‘I’d like to apologize and ask for forgiveness for any pain and suffering I have inflicted upon all of you, including my family. All of you. I am very sorry.’ He repeated to execution witnesses, including his brother and the victim’s daughter-in-law and grandson: ‘I’m very sorry. I’ve got to go now. I love you.’ The execution was delayed for some two-and-a-half hours while Moody’s attorney attempted to obtain a stay based on a challenge of Texas’ clemency process.
According to records from the state Attorney General’s Office, Mauldin was found nude with a telephone cord wrapped tightly around her neck. Her homewas in disarray and two rings that she normally wore were missing, along with her purse and wallet. Two days after the crime, Moody was booked into jail on a charge of public intoxication. The stolen rings were found in his pants pocket, and police discovered his bloody fingerprint on the victim’s telephone. Moody had done yard work for Mauldin in the past, and canceled checks indicated she had paid him for cleaning and yard work he had done in April and May of 1988. Prosecutors offered evidence of past criminal conduct by Moody, including robbery and burglary in Ohio, and sexual assault and theft in West Virginia. Moody was the first death row inmate executed in Texas this year and the 165th since the state resumed the death penalty in 1982
According to court documents Robert Woodward would rob a store and when the owners were not getting the money fast enough Woodward would shoot and kill the pair: Thankachan and Achamma Mathai
Robert Woodward would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Robert Woodard Photos
Robert Woodard Now
Name
Woodard, Robert Lee
TDCJ Number
999388
Date of Birth
06/17/1980
Date Received
06/20/2001
Age (when Received)
21
Education Level (Highest Grade Completed)
11
Date of Offense
02/12/2000
Age (at the time of Offense)
19
County
Harris
Race
Black
Gender
Male
Hair Color
Black
Height (in Feet and Inches)
5′ 10″
Weight (in Pounds)
202
Eye Color
Brown
Native County
Cook
Native State
Illinois
Robert Woodard Case
Robert Lee Woodard, 20, was convicted of capital murder in state District Judge Caprice Cosper’s court in the Feb. 12, 2000, killings of Thankachan and Achamma Mathai in their Conoco store in the 10600 block of Wilcrest.
The Mathais were among several local convenience store operators killed within about seven months, alarming the city and especially its Indian and Pakistani communities.
Prosecutor Vanessa Velasquez said Woodard deliberately shot the couple, who had bought the store a month earlier, when they could not open the cash register fast enough. Woodard then grabbed strips of scratch-off lottery tickets before fleeing.
“So he executes them over what? Stupid scratch-off tickets, about $50 to $60 worth of scratch-off tickets. Is that all their lives were worth?” Velasquez asked the jury during closing arguments Wednesday.
Achamma Mathai, who worked at Park Plaza Hospital, had gone to the store to deliver dinner to her husband that busy Saturday night. Woodard — described as a frequent customer at the store — pointed a gun at them and demanded money from the cash register, according to testimony.
He ordered one customer buying cigarettes to leave, saying, “I have no beef with you, sister.”
After robbing and shooting the couple, Woodard robbed another customer of his car and escaped. He stripped the car and sold the stereo speakers and television monitors from it, witnesses testified.
Defense attorneys Robert Loper and Loretta Muldrow asked the jury for a life sentence. They told jurors of Woodard’s upbringing by an unstable mother who exposed him to gang life and never told him who his father was.
“He’s not an Eagle Scout, but he’s certainly not Hannibal Lecter,” Loper said.
Muldrow told the jury, “I don’t know how many of you were carried in the womb of a gang member while she is in jail.”
Prosecutor Luci Davidson said Woodard never showed remorse for the killings, even when confronted with the Mathais’ “very devastated family,” which is still trying to sell the convenience store where the deaths occurred.
After the death sentence was announced, the Mathais’ daughter, Aji Varghese, spoke tearfully from the witness stand as she looked directly at Woodard.
“Why did you shoot Papa in the chest? Why come back to place a bullet in my frightened mommy’s head? That is just pure evil,” she said.
Woodard, dressed in a gray suit with his hand resting across his mouth, listened with no visible reaction as Varghese spoke.
She asked Woodard to tell others not to mimic his actions and to “try to repent to God
According to court documents David Wood would murder six female victims in 1987: Rosa Maria Casio, 24; Ivy Susanna Williams, 23; Karen Baker, 20; Angelica Frausto, 17; Desiree Wheatley, 15; and Dawn Marie Smith, 14.
David Wood would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
The man convicted nearly 17 years ago of murdering six girls and young women, then burying their bodies in the desert, is scheduled to die Aug. 20 in Huntsville, Texas.
David Leonard Wood, 52, denied killing anyone, though police link him to as many as nine murders. He will be the third El Pasoan to be executed since 1976, when capital punishment was revived in the United States.
The senior George Bush was president when Wood was sentenced to die for the murders of Rosa Maria Casio, 24; Ivy Susanna Williams, 23; Karen Baker, 20; Angelica Frausto, 17; Desiree Wheatley, 15; and Dawn Marie Smith, 14. All were killed in 1987.
El Paso police detectives also suspected him in the 1987 disappearances of Marjorie Knox, 14; Cheryl Vasquez-Dismukes, 19; and Melissa Alaniz, 14. They are still missing.
Prison administrators said a lethal dose of sodium thiopental, a sedative, is administered to condemned inmates. They also are given pancuronium chromide, a muscle relaxant that collapses the diaphragm and lungs, and potassium chloride, which stops the heart
The drugs cost $86.08, and the process lasts about seven minutes.
Marcia Fulton, Wheatley’s mother, said she planned to travel from Florida to Texas to witness Wood’s execution.
“I had promised Desi at her grave the day I buried her that I would find out who did this and help bring them to justice,” Fulton said. “Twenty-two years later, it looks like I will be able to keep my promise.”
The execution will bring to a close a terrifying case for Northeast El Paso, where young women disappeared in 1987 at an alarming rate.
In the beginning, Fulton said, families of the young women who were reported missing had a hard time persuading police to investigate
She said police initially treated the missing teenagers as mere runaways, and the young women as prostitutes and nightclub dancers who led risky lifestyles.
“I told them my daughter was not a runaway,” Fulton said.
Wheatley was last seen getting into Wood’s truck on June 2, 1987, after he offered her a ride home. Her body was found Oct. 20, 1987, in a shallow grave along the 12000 block of McCombs.
To call attention to the disappearances, Fulton, Karen Baker’s mother and others demonstrated at the Stanton Street international bridge.
Al Marquez, then a city detective, said El Paso police mobilized once they realized something heinous was going on.
“We formed a special task force to look into the murders and disappearances. We brought in experts and dogs from out of town to search for bodies.”
During the investigation, the Police Department interviewed 400 people and investigated 50 suspects. Detectives traveled to Florida, Utah and Mexico to follow up on leads. They consulted with FBI profilers, and used aircraft with heat-sensing equipment to comb the desert for more victims.
Although Wood was a prime suspect early on, Marquez said, detectives had a hard time coming up with the evidence they needed to arrest him
A prostitute who accused Wood of tying her up and sexually assaulting her in 1987 in the Northeast desert helped break the case. Her account placed him in the area where the six bodies were buried.
Convicted in 1988 of sexually assaulting the woman, Wood was taken off El Paso streets and sentenced to 50 years in prison. Soon after, with six murders hanging over him, Wood became known as “The Desert Killer.”
Wood’s world consisted of biker clubs, topless bars, tattoo parlors, prostitutes, drugs and alcohol. His dark subculture snared some of the teenagers and young women who became his victims. The Northeast end of town was his playground.
The girls and women who disappeared in 1987 shared the same physical characteristics. They were small and slender.
At least some of the victims, such as Karen Baker and Wheatley, trusted Wood enough to see him socially or climb into his vehicle.
Baker was last seen at the Hawaiian Royale Motel on Dyer Street, leaving with Wood on June 4, 1987. The 20-year-old told someone at the motel she was excited about meeting Wood later that night for a date. Exactly three months later, her body was found in the desert.
Mary Baker, her adoptive mother, said Karen was attending cosmetology school and trying to get her life together when she vanished
Most of Wood’s victims knew him or had some connection to the other young women who disappeared that year. Parents of three of the victims also had something in common: They worked at Rockwell Industries.
Ivy Susanna Williams, who had been charged with prostitution and drug possession, also was known to stay at the Hawaiian Royale Motel. She was married to Ray Fierro of El Paso, but he told police he had not seen her for a year. Williams worked as a topless dancer, as did Rosa Maria Casio and the underaged Angelica Frausto.
Before her disappearance, Frausto was seen with Wood on his motorcycle. Before that, she had hung around the Hawaiian Royale Motel.
Wheatley lived on Tiber Street, near Wood’s home, and knew of him through friends.
Knox, who might have been pregnant, was the first to vanish, on Feb. 14, 1987. She used to ride the bus to school with Wheatley when Wheatley lived in Chaparral, N.M. Baker, who was older, previously lived in Chaparral.
Alaniz and Wheatley attended H.E. Charles Middle School. Vasquez-Dismukes had also been a student there. The school was near Wood’s home.
Denise Frausto said her sister, Angelica Frausto, knew Wheatley. “Angie nicknamed (Desiree Wheatley) ‘Baby Girl,’ and tried to look out after her, so that the older guys would not take advantage of her,” Frausto said.
Cheryl Vasquez-Dismukes, who graduated from Andress High School, married Robert Dismukes by proxy a week before she vanished. Dismukes was in prison at the time, serving a sentence for attempted murder.
Erika Dismukes, her mother-in-law, said last week that she suspects that Cheryl is alive. Yet, for practical reasons, she said, she had her officially declared dead last year.
Casio was the only victim who did not appear to have any Northeast El Paso or Chaparral connections.
During Wood’s murder trial in 1992, prosecutors revealed that he was living with Joann Blaich near the Cabaret Club on Montana Avenue. Casio was last seen leaving the club with a man who fit Wood’s description.
Except for some orange fibers found where Wheatley was buried, which the court did not allow jurors to consider, there was no physical evidence — such as weapons, fingerprints, DNA or clothing — linking Wood to the crimes. But the circumstantial evidence was overwhelming.
The victims knew Wood or had met him through friends, and he was seen with the young women before they disappeared.
Perhaps the most compelling testimony at his trial came from the prostitute Wood had sexually assaulted, and his two former cellmates, Randy Wells and James Carl Sweeney Jr. The prisoners said Wood told them he had killed the women. Wells, in fact, said Wood claimed to have killed 15 women.
Both of Wood’s cellmates had something to gain. One stood to collect a $25,000 reward. Prosecutors dropped a murder charge against the second one in exchange for his testimony.
Dolph Quijano, one of Wood’s lawyers, said former El Paso District Judge Peter Peca made sure Wood got a fair trial.
“He bent over backwards for the defense,” Quijano said.
Heavy publicity in El Paso led the judge to move Wood’s trial to Dallas.
Prosecutor Debra Morgan told jurors that Wood, interested in sex, lured the women to the desert by offering them drugs. Two victims, Williams and Baker, were found with their clothes on. The rest were in different stages of undress.
The prostitute who testified against Wood said he told her he had cocaine buried in the desert.
In a recent interview, Denise Frausto, Angelica Frausto’s sister, said she believed Wood did not act alone.
“The day before Angie disappeared, she took someone to a stash house on Yarbrough (in East El Paso). She was very excited about it,” Frausto said. “There were 15 large black trash bags in the garage of the house full of marijuana. After her body was found, people she used to hang around with told our family that Angie was selling drugs for a cop out of a room at the Hawaiian Royale Motel.
“They also said Wood was seen with that cop and a judge at the motel,” she said. “We told the cops all this, but they brushed it off. Then, we started receiving threats, and my mother told us to just drop it.”
Freddie Bonilla, an investigator hired by Wood’s lawyers, said he tried to pursue a lead that had grown cold by the time the defense team found out about it.
“If Wood killed these girls, I don’t think he did it alone, and he probably didn’t kill all of them,” said Bonilla, who retired as a homicide investigator with the El Paso Police Department and the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office. “Wood was a convenient suspect.”
According to court records, intriguing information surfaced unexpectedly after Wood’s trial had started. It had sat in a box for a couple of years in a locker at the El Paso Police Department. Prosecutors made it available to Wood’s lawyers as soon as it came to their attention.
One of the items was a Crime Stoppers tip alleging that three people had seen a biker known as “Corey” shoot Dawn Marie Smith and bury her body in Chaparral. According to the tipsters, the biker was romantically involved with a woman who knew Wood and who was sheltering Smith at the time in her trailer house.
Smith, believing she was pregnant, had run away from home in June 1987. Her family last heard from her in August. Her body was found on Oct. 20, 1987.
“I believe Smith’s body was moved from Chaparral and reburied in El Paso,” Bonilla said. “A couple of years had passed since the tip, and by the time we got to Chaparral to check this, the trailer where these people lived was gone.”
Wood’s lawyers filed an unsuccessful motion to have Smith’s body exhumed so an expert could examine her remains for gunshot wounds.
During the trial, another woman’s body was found in the desert on the East Side, wrapped in an orange blanket. The victim was older than the others, between 40 and 45 years old.
“We suspected there was a connection to the Northeast murders, but the police said it was not related,” Bonilla said. “The orange fibers from the Wheatley case might have come from this orange blanket.”
Another belated tip was a reference in police detective Ben Ayala’s notes alluding to a sex-and-drug ring involving the murders. This group purportedly did not involve Wood. Ayala, who was part of the police task force, died in a vehicle accident before he could check further.
Other police investigators told Wood’s lawyers that the tip led nowhere.
Across the years, six trial dates were scheduled for Wood. He received a continuance in 1991 to pursue yet another lead. This time it was from FBI agents in Las Vegas. They notified El Paso police in 1989 that a man had confessed to killing young women in El Paso. The man, Edward Dean Barton, was 27 at the time. Except for his blue eyes, he supposedly resembled Wood, who had hazel eyes.
“Barton claimed to have killed four women in the El Paso, Texas, area between May and December of 1987,” the FBI report said. “Barton buried the women in the desert off Dyer Street. He chose the desert because the desert eats bodies up. Barton described the women as all being small, petite, young, with features similar to that of his wife.”
Barton also told the FBI he had hired someone to kill his wife, Mary Alice Barefoot, but changed his mind. Later, Barton, who was on parole for other crimes, escaped from a halfway house in Nevada.
Steve Simmons, then the El Paso district attorney, said in a July 30, 1991, letter that Barton’s wife confirmed her husband was in El Paso between April or May 1987 and February 1988. Simmons said that Barton was a drug addict and that his statements to the FBI “are not worthy of belief.”
The bodies might not have been found had it not been for Frank Brooks, who worked for the El Paso Water Utilities and stumbled on the first two victims, Baker and Casio, while hunting for arrowheads on Sept. 4, 1987.
There is no longer any sign of the desert graveyard between McCombs and Dyer, where cars and trucks zip by at high speeds. Today, the only things moving around the area are cottontails that scurry through mesquite trees and quail that scratch at wild melon patches.
To the immediate north, near the New Mexico line, the Painted Dunes Golf Course, which did not exist then, thrives with throngs of golfers.
Last year, the city reported that a major company was interested in creating a giant high-end development in that part of Northeast El Paso.
Some of the people who moved into new homes nearby said they had never heard of the desert deaths.
•Jan. 15, 1987 — Wood is paroled after serving about seven years of a 20-year sentence for sexually assaulting two teenage girls in Northeast El Paso. Now 29, he moves in with his father in Northeast El Paso.
•Feb. 14, 1987 — Marjorie Knox, 14, of Chaparral, N.M., disappears while visiting friends in Northeast El Paso. She is still missing.
•March 7, 1987 — Melissa Alaniz of Northeast El Paso disappears. She is still missing.
•June 2, 1987 — Desiree Wheatley, 15, of Northeast El Paso, disappears.
•June 5, 1987 — Karen Baker, 20, of Northeast El Paso, disappears.
•June 28, 1987 — Cheryl Lynn Vasquez-Dismukes, 19, of Northeast El Paso, disappears. She is still missing.
•July 11, 1987 — Families and friends of the missing women demonstrate at the Stanton Street international bridge to bring attention to the cases.
•Aug.8, 1987 — Angelica Frausto, 17, of North-Central El Paso, is last seen by her family.
•Aug. 12, 1987 — Rosa Maria Casio, 24, of Addison, Texas, disappears while visiting her sister in Juárez. Her car is found abandoned the next day in Central El Paso.
•Aug. 28, 1987 — Dawn Marie Smith, 14, of Northeast El Paso, calls her family to say she will not return home.
•Sept. 4, 1987 — A utility worker finds the bodies of Casio and Baker in the Northeast desert between Dyer and McCombs.
•Oct. 20, 1987 — Wheatley and Smith’s bodies are found within a half mile of the first two bodies.
•Oct. 24, 1987 — Police arrest Wood in the sexual assault and kidnapping of a prostitute. They also say he violated the terms of his parole.
•Nov. 3, 1987 — Frausto’s body is found in the same desert area.
•March 15, 1988 — Ivy Susanna Williams’ body is found in the same area.
•March 17, 1988 — Wood is sentenced to 50 years in the attack on the prostitute.
•May 27, 1988 — Wood marries Valerie A. Trader.
•November 1988 — Wood sues police, claiming they made him an “escape goat.”
•July 13, 1990 — A grand jury indicts Wood on serial murder charges.
•July 29, 1991 — Wood and his wife divorce.
•Oct. 21, 1992 — Testimony begins in Wood’s capital murder trial, which was moved to Dallas.
•Nov. 10, 1992 — Jurors convict Wood and recommend the death penalty.
•Aug. 20, 2009 — The state plans to execute Wood at its Huntsville prison.
According to court documents Tyrone Williams would go to a home where he would fatally stab Nichole Elizabeth Gonzales, 27, and her mother, Vicki Ann Gonzales, 51.
Tyrone Williams would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Tyrone Williams Photos
Tyrone Williams Now
Name
Williams, Tyrone Jamaal
TDCJ Number
999624
Date of Birth
03/19/1986
Date Received
11/22/2021
Age (when Received)
35
Education Level (Highest Grade Completed)
Date of Offense
06/17/2016
Age (at the time of Offense)
30
County
Hunt
Race
Black
Gender
Male
Hair Color
Black
Height (in Feet and Inches)
6′ 0″
Weight (in Pounds)
185
Eye Color
Brown
Native County
Hays
Native State
Texas
Tyrone Williams Case
A jury has ruled Tyrone Jamaal Williams should be executed for the murders of a Hunt County woman and her mother in 2016.The jury in the 196th District Court deliberated for about four hours before returning with the decision at around 8:30 p.m. Thursday, according to Hunt County District Attorney Noble D. Walker R.“This was an extremely brutal crime that unquestionably warranted the death penalty,” Walker said. “We certainly respect the jury for their very thoughtful deliberation and pray this outcome will bring Vickie and Nicole’s family some peace after having gone through so much since this offense was committed.”Opening arguments and the start of testimony in the trial began Nov. 1.
Williams, 35, of San Marcos, had pleaded not guilty to an indictment with two counts of capital murder in connection with the slayings of Nichole Elizabeth Gonzales, 27, and her mother, Vicki Ann Gonzales, 51 at a residence just outside of Commerce.A 911 call came in at around 1:20 p.m. June 17, 2016 from Vicki Gonzales, who was screaming for help and calling out Williams’ name. The call came from a home in the 7300 block of State Highway 50.The Commerce Police Department was the first agency on the scene and found the women had been slain. Williams’ vehicle was found about three miles away from the home.A search began for Williams with the assistance of the Commerce Police Department, Texas Department of Public Safety and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice K-9 search team.At approximately 11 p.m. June 17, 2016 the Commerce Police Department received a call of a suspicious person in the 2700 block of State Highway 24/50, at the intersection of Live Oak Street
When contacted by officers, Williams allegedly gave officers his brother’s name, but Williams’ identification was found in his possession.Williams was taken into custody without incident.Williams worked as a long haul trucker for a Fort Worth company.“First Assistant District Attorney Steven Lilley and Assistant District Attorney Allison Flanagan worked tirelessly over the last several months preparing this case,” Walker said. “They represented the State at an extremely high level during both the guilt/innocence and punishment phase of the trial. Additionally, we are grateful for the work done on this case by the Texas Rangers, Hunt County Sheriff’s Office, and the Commerce Police Department.
The guilty verdict and death sentence were a direct result of their thorough investigation.”Mabel Jean Gonzales of Austin was indicted in June 2017 on one count of tampering with or fabricating physical evidence with the intent to impair. Gonzales pleaded guilty in April 2018 to a lesser charge of attempting to tamper with or fabricating evidence.The attempting to tamper charge carries a maximum punishment upon conviction of from two to 10 years in prison and an optional fine of up to $10,000.In a criminal complaint filed as part of court records, the Hunt County Sheriff’s Office revealed Gonzales was Williams’ girlfriend and alleged that after she visited Williams in the jail, Gonzales drove to a location near the murder scene and removed items from the site
According to court documents Perry Williams and his accomplices were driving off robbing people. They would pick Matthew Carter who would be robbed and fatally shot
Perry Williams would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Perry Williams Photos
Perry Williams Now
Name
Williams, Jr., Perry Eugene
TDCJ Number
999420
Date of Birth
09/22/1980
Date Received
06/25/2002
Age (when Received)
21
Education Level (Highest Grade Completed)
12
Date of Offense
09/07/2000
Age (at the time of Offense)
19
County
Harris
Race
Black
Gender
Male
Hair Color
Black
Height (in Feet and Inches)
5′ 11″
Weight (in Pounds)
135
Eye Color
Brown
Native County
Harris
Native State
Texas
Perry Williams Case
On September 9, 2000, Perry Williams was driving in his car with a female friend, Kinita Starr Butler, who had a handgun. Upon seeing Lolita Cherry and Nicole Green walking down the street, appellant drove by and parked a short distance in front of them. Perry Williams got out of his car, grabbed Cherry, placed the handgun to her head, and demanded her purse. After getting the purse, Butler searched through it and told appellant, “This bitch don’t got no money.” Appellant turned Cherry around to face him and shot her in the breast. Perry Williams then jumped into his car and drove away. Cherry was taken to the hospital, where the wound was determined to be “superficial.” The bullet had entered and exited her breast and was not recovered. Cherry was permitted to leave the hospital the next morning. During his testimony at the punishment phase of trial, appellant claimed that his shooting was intended only to scare Cherry, not to hit her, and that he did not realize at the time that she had actually been shot.
On September 17, 2000, Perry Williams, his cousin James Dunn, Jr., and Butler were driving around in appellant’s car and picked up Corey Phillips. Butler had again brought her handgun, and the group proceeded to carry out four robberies that evening. First, they approached Anthony Gonzales in a Kroger parking lot. Appellant pointed the handgun at Gonzales’s face and said, “Give me your car.” Because Gonzales’s car had a stick shift, appellant could not drive it and point the gun at Gonzales at the same time, so he ordered Gonzales to drive the car while he held the gun to Gonzales’s ribs. Appellant took Gonzales’s wallet and yanked two chains from his neck. Appellant also took Gonzales’s ATM card and demanded the PIN number. Appellant kept Gonzales’s driver’s license in case Gonzales ever reported the robbery and they needed “somebody” to “take care of it.” Appellant testified that this was done at Phillips’s instruction. The group drove to an ATM machine, and appellant tried to use the ATM card to withdraw money, but the PIN number did not work. Appellant testified that Dunn urged him to try again, but appellant’s efforts were not successful
The group next approached Matthew Carter, the victim in this case. Carter had visited his girlfriend and fellow medical student, Maryam Saifi, to help her with a class project. Carter left Saifi’s home around 11:00 p.m. to return a rented video to Blockbuster. The group drove into the Blockbuster parking lot and saw Carter returning to his car after returning the videotape. According to appellant’s testimony at trial, Dunn was supposed to take the handgun and rob Carter as part of an initiation into an affiliate of the Crips gang, but Dunn “froze up.” Phillips then handed appellant the gun and told him to “go get em.” According to his testimony at trial, appellant “took the gun and took over.” Appellant forced Carter at gunpoint into the passenger seat of Carter’s car, and appellant got into the driver’s seat. They then followed Phillips, who was driving appellant’s vehicle. Carter told appellant numerous times that he had an ATM card that appellant could “max out,” and he pleaded with appellant not to hurt him. Nevertheless, after parking the car, appellant shot Carter in the head from close range. According to appellant’s confession, Carter hit appellant and the gun fired. Forty dollars was taken out of Carter’s wallet and distributed evenly among the four members of the group.
About an hour later, the group committed two more robberies. In the first of these robberies, Tomas Kooh and Ricardo Rubio were at a gas station when appellant and his companions drove up. Phillips pointed the handgun at both men and demanded their wallets. After Phillips took their wallets, appellant “burned off and got on the freeway.” In the other robbery, Phillips approached Franklin Jackson, who had left the door of his motel room open after unloading his truck. As Jackson turned to close the door, Phillips pointed a gun at him and told him to get back. Jackson slammed the door as Phillips attempted to force his way in and a shot was fired as a result, causing a minor wound to Jackson’s hand. Appellant was also the driver of the car in this robbery.
