Newton Anderson was executed by the State of Texas for a double murder
According to court documents Newton Anderson broke into the home of Frank and Bertha Cobb in Tyler. The woman would be sexually assaulted and murdered and her husband would be murdered as well
Newton Anderson would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Newton Anderson would be executed by lethal injection on February 22 2007
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When Was Newton Anderson Executed
Newton Anderson was executed on February 22 2007
Newton Anderson Case
An apologetic career burglar was executed Thursday evening for torturing and killing a retired couple during the break-in of their home eight years ago. “For all those that want this to happen, I hope you get what you want and it makes you feel better and gives you some kind of relief,” Newton Anderson said as he looked at relatives and friends of the couple. “I don’t know what else to say.” Looking toward another window where his sister was sobbing, he said, “For those that I have hurt, I hope after a while it gets better.” Anderson told them several times that he loved them. “I am sorry. That’s it. Goodbye.” Seven minutes later at 6:17 p.m. CST, Anderson was pronounced dead.
In a handwritten statement distributed after his death, Anderson again apologized to the family of his victims. “I only want to say that for the last eight years I have had to live with my guilt and shame. I know I was wrong and now I give my life,” he wrote. He concluded, “I give my life. I hope it is enough for everyone. If things could be undone, I would do it, I would do it!!”
Anderson, 30, who said he began stealing from homes even before he was a teenager, had been out of prison only about four months after serving four years for burglary when he was arrested for the slayings of Frank Cobb, 71, and his 61-year-old wife, Bertha, at their rural home near Tyler in Smith County. Anderson was the fifth Texas inmate executed this year and the first of four set to die over the next two weeks in the nation’s most active capital punishment state.
About an hour before he was scheduled to die, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal that sought to delay the punishment. Anderson’s attorneys had argued he was denied due process because of erroneous rulings in the trial court and overzealous prosecutors.
Anderson, in an interview on death row last week, acknowledged the killings but said he was at a loss for why they happened. He did not testify at his trial. The couple had been out running errands and returned home to find him inside. “I am guilty,” he told The Associated Press. “I don’t deny that. … They had good evidence. Witnesses saw me. What can I say?” “The issue of guilt-innocence was absolutely moot,” said Matt Bingham, who prosecuted the case.
Firefighters responding to a blaze March 4, 1999, at the Cobbs’ home in New Harmony, about 10 miles northwest of Tyler, found the bodies. Frank Cobb, a retired telephone company worker, was found face-down on the floor with his hands bound with electrical tape behind his back. His wife, a retired nurse, had her hands tied with tape and had her eyes, nose and mouth covered with tape. Both victims had been shot in the head. Mrs. Cobb had been raped.
Prosecutors said their house and bodies had been set on fire. “This was a case where he didn’t just kill them and take their property,” Bingham said. “He really tortured them. It was just horrific.”
The couple’s son, daughter and nephew watched Anderson die. “I don’t think it sounded true because it was written today,” Carolyn Sanders, who lost her parents, said of Anderson’s apology. “I think he deserves everything he got. “At least he had eight more years. They didn’t.” “This has been one hell of a road for all of us,” her brother, Kevin Cobb, said. “I hope that young man made some kind of remorse with the Lord and himself, or he has a lot of things to worry about.”
Witnesses saw Anderson driving away in the couple’s maroon Cadillac. Property taken from their home was found at the residence where Anderson was living. He was arrested in Dallas, where he fled the day of the slayings.
Anderson, who had at least four previous convictions for burglary and had been arrested for burglary in California as a juvenile, said he viewed the execution as “relief more than anything.” “Conditions aren’t top-notch here,” he said of death row. “Really, I’m tired of being here.”
When he got out of prison after serving about half of an eight-year term, he said he couldn’t find work. “I went back to what I knew how to do,” he said. “All I knew is how to break into houses.” When asked about the slayings, he replied, “The rest of my case, I can’t explain why.”
In California, Anderson escaped from his juvenile lockup. In Texas, he also had been jailed for domestic assault. He twice was apprehended trying to escape jail while awaiting trial on the capital murder charge. On death row, the red-haired prisoner was caught trying to cut his way out of his steel cell, earning him the nickname “Hacksaw Red” from his fellow condemned inmates.
The next Texas inmate scheduled to die is Donald Miller, condemned for the fatal shooting of two men during a 1982 robbery in Houston. Miller, 44, set for injection Tuesday, has spent more than 24 years on death row, making him among the state’s longest-serving condemned prisoners. Two more executions are set for the following week.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/4574886.html
