Tomas Ervin and Bert Hunter were executed by the State of Missouri for a double murder
According to court documents Tomas Ervin and Bert Hunter would break into a home at gunpoint. Richard Hodges and his mother Mildred Hodges were bound by duct tape. Tomas and Bert would place plastic bags over the victims heads causing them to suffocate
Tomas Ervin and Bert Hunter would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Bert Hunter was executed on June 28 2000
Tomas Ervin was executed on March 28 2001
Tomas Ervin Photos
Bert Hunter Photos
Tomas Ervin FAQ
When Was Tomas Ervin Executed
Tomas Ervin was executed on March 28 2001
When Was Bert Hunter Executed
Bert Hunter was executed on June 28 2000
Tomas Ervin Case
Proclaiming his innocence to the end, Tomas Ervin was executed this morning at the Potosi Correctional Center for his role in the December 1988 murders of Jefferson City residents Mildred and Richard Hodges.
Tim Kniest, spokesman for the state Corrections Department, told reporters Ervin’s last words before his execution were: “When the courts of this nation refuse to afford a condemned prisoner the opportunity to prove that he’s actually innocent of the crimes for which he stands condemned, the capital punishment system is broken. “The courts refused me that opportunity and so tonight, as it has done at least twice in the past, the state of Missouri executes an innocent man.” Kniest said Ervin, 50, didn’t name the other death row inmates he thought had been wrongly executed.
Gov. Bob Holden, who at 12:01 a.m. gave the order to proceed with Missouri’s second execution this year, didn’t agree that Ervin’s sentence was improper. “I have examined the history of the judicial proceedings and the request for a stay that have been placed before me. I find nothing to justify setting aside the result of the judicial proceedings,” Holden said in a statement read to reporters by Dora Schriro, the state’s Corrections director. “The state, on behalf of its citizens, has the right to impose the death penalty for the crime of capital murder. Our courts and the Department (of Corrections) have met their responsibilities under the law . . . . “I reaffirm my solemn oath to uphold the law. It is the duty of my office to do so, on behalf of the people of Missouri.” Ervin’s execution was the second carried out since Holden became governor in January, and the 48th since the state resumed executions in 1989.
He was convicted of killing both Mildred Hodges, 75 at the time of her death, and her son, Richard Hodges, 49, during a robbery of their Boonville Road home on Dec. 15 or 16, 1988. The two convictions came on Jan. 19, 1990, after a Callaway County jury heard the evidence in a Fulton trial, on a change of venue from Cole County. Circuit Judge Frank Conley imposed the jury’s recommended death sentences in March 1990.
It was the second time Ervin faced a murder conviction: At the time of the Hodges murders, Ervin had been out of prison for nine years after serving 10 years of a life sentence imposed following his guilty plea to second-degree murder for the 1967 stabbing death of a St. Joseph cab driver. While in the Missouri State Penitentiary at Jefferson City (now the Jefferson City Correctional Center), Ervin met Bert L. Hunter, another inmate serving a life sentence for an unrelated northwest Missouri murder.
Hunter also was convicted of killing the Hodges, a mother and son real-estate team, and stealing a car, jewelry, a fur coat and other items from their home. Hunter was executed last June 28 for his role in the two murders — nine months to the day before Ervin’s death by lethal injection. Ervin’s death at 12:04 a.m. came about three minutes after he received the first injection of sodium pentathol, a drug that causes unconsciousness. Right after that drug was given, he breathed heavily a couple of times and appeared to fall asleep. Other drugs used in the execution process are pancronium bromide, which stops breathing, and potassium chloride, which causes the heart to stop working.
Seven people — including three reporters and two law enforcement officers who helped investigate the Hodges murders — witnessed this morning’s execution for the state. No one from the Hodges family attended the execution. And the only man present at Ervin’s request was identified as his “spiritual adviser.” That man, dressed in a priest’s clothes, nodded and gave Ervin a slight smile when the blinds covering the execution room first were opened. Ervin seemed to smile after that gesture from his witness, and was looking at the ceiling when the first injection was given at 12:01 a.m. Kniest said Ervin’s final meal included a sirloin steak, butterfly shrimp, corn, French fried potatoes, a roll, coffee and a chocolate shake. Today’s execution came after Holden, the state Supreme Court and the federal appeals and Supreme courts rejected legal pleas for a stay.