Robert Rowell was executed by the State of Texas for a double murder
According to court documents Robert Rowell would go to a home where he would demand money and drugs before fatally shooting Irvin Wright and Raymond Mata
Robert Rowell would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Robert Rowell would be executed by lethal injection on November 15 2005
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When Was Robert Rowell Executed
Robert Rowell was executed on November 15 2005
Robert Rowell Case
Looking at six women who came to support him during his last hour, Robert Dale Rowell apologized to his victims’ families. “I would like to apologize to the victims’ family and all the grief I have caused them,” Rowell said in his brief final statement, as the mother, sister and brother of one of his victims watched through a window. Rowell was a habitual drug user who murdered two people at a Houston crack house 12 years ago.
He then addressed his friends, saying, “I would like to say I love the girls next to them,” he said. Several of the women sobbed and had to support each other as they watched the lethal drugs begin to take effect. Rowell said, “Praise the Lord. Let’s go warden. That’s it.”
The 50-year-old then snorted twice and drew his final breath. He was pronounced dead nine minutes later at 6:24 p.m. CST.
Rowell had already been to prison, where records showed he fatally stabbed a fellow inmate while serving a sentence for robbery, and was free under mandatory supervision when he was arrested for the 1993 shooting spree that sent him to death row.
His execution was the first of two scheduled in Texas on consecutive nights this week. He was the 18th prisoner this year to receive lethal injection in the nation’s most active capital punishment state. Condemned inmate Shannon Thomas was to follow him to the death chamber gurney Wednesday night for a triple slaying in Baytown on Christmas Eve in 1993. The U.S. Supreme Court last month refused to review Rowell’s case and no late legal attempts were made to spare him.
Raymond Mata, 38, and Irvin Wright, 52, were killed May 10, 1993, when Rowell showed up at Wright’s house before dawn complaining about paying too much for some crack cocaine. Mata also was living there with his wife, Angie Perez. “He always had a dope problem,” said Kelly Siegler, the Harris County district attorney who prosecuted the capital murder case and used Rowell’s extensive criminal history to persuade jurors to send him to death row.
Wright was beaten with a claw hammer. Then all three were herded into a bathroom where they were shot in a bathtub. Perez was seriously wounded but survived to testify against Rowell. Rowell was arrested a short time later at an auto repair shop where he worked. Police found a .22-caliber revolver with six spent cartridge casings and a bank bag belonging to Wright.
Rowell declined to speak with reporters as his death date approached. Witnesses at his trial described him as depressed, introverted, psychopathic and a chronic drug user who turned violent while under the influence of drugs.
Rowell first went to prison in 1974 at age 18 with 10- and 12-year concurrent sentences for armed robbery. He was paroled 4 1/2 years later. A 1980 robbery spree that included a shootout with a Houston police officer at a restaurant ended with his arrest while he hid under a car in a parking lot and got him a 30-year sentence. Two years later, prison records show he fatally stabbed a fellow inmate at the Ramsey I prison in Brazoria County, earning him a manslaughter conviction and another eight-year prison term.
In June 1991, however, he was released under mandatory supervision only to be arrested two years later for the crack house shootings.
Thomas was to follow Rowell to the death chamber 24 hours later. One other execution is scheduled in Texas for December. If carried out, the 20 lethal injections would be three less than a year ago. A record 40 were carried out in 2000.
http://www.itemonline.com/articles/2005/11/16/news/local/news4.txt
