Robert Lookingbill was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of his grandmother Adeline Wuanita Dannenberg
According to court documents Robert Lookingbill was living with his Grandparents when he would go to a neighbors home and told them that someone had attacked his Grandparents. When the police showed up they would find Adeline Wuanita Dannenberg and her husband badly beaten. Adeline would die ten days later in the hospital her husband would die a year later. Police noticed that Lookingbill had blood splatter on his clothes and he would be taken into custody where he would confess to the murder
Robert Lookingbill would be convicted and sentenced to death
Robert Lookingbill would be executed by lethal injection on January 22 2003
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When Was Robert Lookingbill Executed
Robert Lookingbill was executed on January 22 2003
Robert Lookingbill Case
A Hidalgo County man convicted of beating his grandmother to death for drug money in 1989 is scheduled to be executed Wednesday night. Barring a stay of execution, 37-year-old Robert Andrew Lookingbill will be the third person to die by lethal injection in Texas this year.
Authorities say Lookingbill, who had previously served less than one year of a seven-year sentence for aggravated assault, beat Adeline and Lorenz Dannenberg so severely with a heavy metal bar on the night of Dec. 5, 1989, that the two died from their injuries. The bar, which was 54 inches long and two inches across, has been described as weighing “in excess of 20 pounds.”
In the early morning hours of Dec. 5, Lookingbill – who later described himself as being “coked up” – knocked on the door of a neighbor and said his grandparents, who he lived with, had been beaten up. The neighbor, Melissa Martinez, and her friend Alberto Aguilar, went into the Dannenberg home and found Lookingbill’s grandparents unconscious and lying in pools of blood. The 75-year-old Mr. Dannenberg, who would survive for more than one year before dying from his injuries, was found lying on the floor. Mrs. Dannenberg, 70, was found lying on her bed, suffering from a fractured skull, jaw and hand. She died 10 days later.
The case against Lookingbill developed quickly. The metal bar, with blood stains and hair strands which matched the Dannenbergs, was found in a nearby family shed. Police also quickly seized Lookingbill’s pants, jacket and boots, which were splattered in blood. When the contents of his jeans pockets were inventoried, police found a total of $568 – an amount Dannenberg’s daughter later testified was about the amount of her parent’s social security checks, which they had received a few days before.
When questioned by police, Lookingbill gave two very different stories. First, he said he returned to the Dannenberg house at about 1:15 a.m. and found his grandparents already beaten and unconscious. He later recanted and told a different story, saying he returned at around 1:15 “coked up” and drunk and grabbed the metal bar from the garage.
“My grandfather was sleeping on the floor. I approached him with the big metal bar and struck him in the head . . . I must have hit him more than one time,” Lookingbill told investigators. “(His grandmother) was sleeping. I hit her in the head with the same pipe.”
Lookingbill now insists he was not responsible for the murders of his grandparents. “I’m supposed to have knocked off the people I loved most in the world,” he told The McAllen Monitor. “I know I didn’t do it. And $500 ain’t much compared to my grandmother’s life.”
Lookingbill pled not guilty to a single charge of capital murder – his grandfather was still alive at the time of his trial – but was found guilty by a Hidalgo County jury on Nov. 15, 1990, exactly 11 months after his grandmother’s death. He was sentenced to death four days later, and received a 75-year sentence for the attempted capital murder of his grandfather.
Through a Web site hosted by the Canadian Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Lookingbill continues to protest his innocence. In spite of his protestations, it appears unlikely Lookingbill will receive clemency. He is scheduled to be executed sometime after 6 p.m. in the death chamber at the Huntsville “Walls” Unit.
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