Michael Griffith was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of Deborah McCormick
According to court documents Michael Griffith would enter a flower shop and shoot and kill the owner Deborah McCormick before robbing the store
Michael Griffith would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Michael Griffith would be executed by lethal injection on June 6 2007
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Michael Griffith FAQ
When Was Michael Griffith Executed
Michael Griffith was executed on June 6 2007
Michael Griffith Case
A former sheriff’s deputy who killed a Houston woman during a robbery, sexual assault and stabbing attack took away the glue that held their family together, the daughter of the murder victim said after the man was put to death. “We will never be the same,” Dawn Kirkland said after Michael Griffith quietly was executed Wednesday evening for the slaying of her mother, Deborah McCormick, at her family’s flower shop nearly 13 years ago.
Griffith, 56, one of the rare ex-lawmen on death row in Texas, made no final statement from the death chamber gurney, replying to the warden with a “No, sir” when asked if he had anything to say. But as the lethal drugs began flowing, he whispered, “Please take my spirit to the Lord.”
Nine minutes later he was pronounced dead, making him the 15th condemned prisoner executed this year in Texas, the nation’s most active death penalty state. Four other inmates — including a woman — are set for lethal injection over the next three weeks.
Prison officials said Griffith, convicted and sentenced to die for killing McCormick, 44, in October 1994, may have been the first ex-officer to receive injection since the state resumed carrying out executions in 1982. A former Amarillo rookie police officer, Jim Vanderbilt, was condemned for killing the daughter of a state lawmaker in 1975 but he died of natural causes in 2002. Robert Fratta, a former officer in the Houston suburb of Missouri City, is awaiting execution after he was convicted of arranging the murder of his wife in 1994.
Kirkland was among five relatives of McCormick to watch the execution. “We came here today with justice on our minds and heaviness in our hearts,” Kirkland said in a statement released after Griffith’s death. “This is merely the end of another chapter in our story and with this end may it bring peace to our family.”
Griffith had been a repeat customer at the shop run by McCormick and her mother, and he was known to the victim who was alone at the time of the attack. McCormick and her mother, who discovered her daughter’s body, had a policy of not opening the door for people they didn’t know if either was away.
The U.S. Supreme Court in January refused to review his case and Griffith’s lawyer filed no additional appeals to try to block the execution.
Griffith rose to the rank of sergeant over his 10-year career with the Harris County Sheriff’s Department but lost his job in 1993 when he was charged with assault, a violation of the department policy on domestic abuse.
At his capital murder trial, former wives and girlfriends testified how he courted them with flowers but later abused them, including one who said he became violent with her on their wedding day. Griffith also was convicted of two violent robberies involving women — one at a savings and loan office and another at a bridal shop — the same month as the McCormick slaying. Both women survived their attacks and testified against Griffith.
When Griffith was arrested after the robbery and attack at the bridal shop, police found him with credit cards belonging to McCormick’s mother that were taken in the flower shop robbery. They also found a knife and a receipt for roses he’d purchased that day from the store. A medical examiner and DNA evidence identified the knife as the murder weapon. “The evidence against him was overwhelming,” said David Cunningham, one of his trial lawyers. “When you focus on the circumstances of his arrest — they find him with the credit cards, the knife with her DNA on it, they had him on at least two other crimes — there really wasn’t much. We didn’t contest the issue of guilt-innocence. It was a punishment case from the start.”
A defense psychologist said Griffith had a borderline personality disorder that showed up against wives and girlfriends. Defense lawyers said he was scarred by a neglectful mother who often was angry and violent when drunk and they believed the mitigating evidence presented to a Harris County jury was good enough to spare Griffith’s life. The jury disagreed and voted for the death penalty.
After Griffith, scheduled to die next is Cathy Henderson, facing lethal injection June 13 for the 1994 slaying of Brandon Baugh, a 3-month-old Austin-area child she was baby-sitting. The child’s skull was crushed in what Henderson said was an accident. His body was buried in a wine cooler box and was found 18 days after she and the child disappeared.
