Ricky Morrow was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of Mark Frazier
According to court documents Ricky Morrow and his girlfriend would rob a bank and then thirty minutes later would enter another bank. Ricky would demand all of the money and would shoot and kill bank employee Mark Frazier. At the time of the murder Ricky Morrow was on parole after serving just five years of a twenty five year sentence
Ricky Morrow would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Ricky Morrow would be executed by lethal injection on October 20 2004
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When Was Ricky Morrow Executed
Ricky Morrow was executed on October 20 2004
Ricky Morrow Case
Convicted killer Ricky Morrow was executed Wednesday evening in the Texas death chamber for the slaying of a Dallas savings and loan office worker during a robbery 22 years ago.
Morrow, 53, acknowledged firing the shot that killed 26-year-old Mark Frazier, but the former welder who carried a gun in each hand during the $5,500 holdup said he shouldn’t have been sentenced to death for the 1982 slaying because the shooting was an accident.
Three of his sisters were the only personal witnesses to the execution; Frazier’s family did not attend. Upon entering the viewing room, Morrow acknowledged his sisters with nods and a few mouthed words of assurance. He gave a final statement, but did not mention his crime or the victim’s family except to say he was sorry. “What a blessing, what a blessing you have been in my life,” a tearful Morrow told his sisters. “And I am so sorry you are going through what you are now . . . I love you all.” After telling the warden he was ready and the lethal dose began at 6:25 p.m., Morrow made a few last statements directly to his family. He then took a few deep breaths, said he could “feel it” and became quiet.
His sisters were visibly emotionally overcome, and the three shared words among each other. Then, at 6:32 p.m., Morrow was pronounced dead. Morrow was the 17th Texas prisoner executed this year and the fourth this month. Another lethal injection is set for next week and six are scheduled for November.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused Wednesday to block Morrow’s execution as Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials moved him from death row at a prison in Livingston to the Huntsville “Walls” Unit, about 45 miles west, where lethal injections are carried out. Three of the justices supported a delay. The appeal argued evidence from prosecution witnesses was withheld that could have swayed jurors to vote for murder instead of capital murder. Only the capital murder conviction carries a possible death sentence.
Morrow was tried and sentenced to death in 1983, but the conviction was thrown out five years later by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. In 1989, a second trial was halted when a judge declared a mistrial. Morrow went to trial again the following year, was convicted and condemned.
The late afternoon holdup on Jan. 19, 1982, at the First Texas Savings and Loan Association branch where Frazier was killed was the second of the day involving Morrow and his girlfriend, evidence showed. Witnesses said Morrow, carrying a .38-caliber revolver in one hand and a .25-caliber automatic in the other, screamed and cursed as he announced a holdup and took Frazier hostage. With one gun on his captive, he pointed the second weapon at a teller and ordered her to fill a bag with money. As Morrow went to leave, Frazier was shot in the face. “My thumb slipped,” Morrow testified at his second trial. “It was something I never ever intended would happen.”
Morrow, a Navarro County native who was listed at the time of his arrest as being from Houston, was a two-time parolee. When taken into custody, he had been out of prison for about five months after serving five years of a 25-year term for aggravated robbery.
http://www.itemonline.com/articles/2004/10/21/news/local/news5.txt
