Vincent Cooks was executed by the State of Texas for the murder of Gary McCarthy
According to court documents Vincent Cooks was watching when the owner of a supermarket was walking to the bank accompanied by Gary McCarthy, an off duty police officer working security. Cooks would run up to both men and demanded the money bag. When Gary McCarthy stepped in he would be shot and would later die at the hospital
Vincent Cooks would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Vincent Cooks would be executed by lethal injection on December 12 2001
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When Was Vincent Cooks Executed
Vincent Cooks was executed on December 12 2001
Vincent Cooks Case
Vincent Edward Cooks, 37, was executed by lethal injection on 12 December in Huntsville, Texas for the murder of a policeman during a robbery.
In February 1988, supermarket owner Mark DeCardenas went to the bank to obtain $30,000 in cash for the store’s check cashing service. Gary Don McCarthy, 33, a Dallas police officer who was working as the store’s security guard, accompanied him. McCarthy was not in uniform. While DeCardenas and McCarthy were at the bank, Dallas police officers noticed a trio of men sitting in a parked Plymouth outside of a supermarket. They found no reason to detain the men, but they did note the license plate of the car.
After the police left, two of the men — Vincent Cooks, 23, and Tony Harvey, 23 — got out of the Plymouth and entered an Oldsmobile. Tracy Stallworth, 27, stayed in the Plymouth. When they spotted DeCardenas and McCarthy returning to the store, Cooks exited the Oldsmobile and approached DeCardenas and McCarthy on foot. Waving his gun, he demanded the money bag and tried to grab it from DeCardenas. McCarthy pushed him away and DeCardenas dropped the bag. Cooks then shot McCarthy and grabbed a bundle amounting to $10,000. Cooks got into the stolen Oldsmobile and fled. McCarthy shot at the car and shattered its rear window. McCarthy was then taken to a hospital, where he died.
Police found the Oldsmobile with the shattered rear window, abandoned. A revolver was found inside. Police also traced the license plate of the Plymouth to Tracy Stallworth. They arrested Stallworth the day after the shooting. Stallworth named Cooks and Harvey as accomplices. A witness later picked out Cooks from a police lineup and identified him as the killer of Officer McCarthy.
Cooks had previously been convicted of aggravated assault in a case that included him firing shots at a police officer. He began serving a 5-year sentence in December 1986. He served 8 months before being paroled, in August 1987. (At this time, early parole was common in Texas because of strict prison population caps imposed by U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice.)
At his punishment hearing, prosecutors presented evidence that Cooks committed two very similar armed robberies prior to the one in which Gary McCarthy was killed. In November 1987, a grocery store owner was robbed after a bank run, and police found fingerprints belonging to Cooks and Stallworth on a stolen car that was abandoned nearby. The other armed robbery Cooks was believed to have committed occurred in January 1988, when a liquor store employee was robbed while returning from the bank.
While awaiting trial in jail, Cooks threatened to kill or beat any police who “messed” with him.
Early witness identifications pointed to a killer who was much shorter and smaller than the 6-foot-3, 300-pound Cooks. Nevertheless, a jury found Cooks guilty beyond reasonable doubt and convicted him and sentenced him to death in December 1988. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed his conviction in September 1992. Cooks was originally scheduled to be executed in 1996, but a U.S. District Court issued a stay in order to hear one of his appeals. That court rejected his appeal in 2000, and all of Cooks’ subsequent motions to appeal were denied.
Throughout his appeals and his stay on death row, Cooks claimed he was innocent of shooting McCarthy. “I haven’t been a saint, but I didn’t commit this murder,” he told a reporter last week. “I did many wrong things, but they’re executing me for something I didn’t do.” He admitted committing the other armed robberies, but “nobody was hurt.”
At his execution, Cooks expressed love for his family. He also apologized to his mother. “I’m sorry, Teach [Mom] for not being a better son and not doing better things,” he told her. Addressing the victim’s family in a booth on the other side of the room, he said, “You people over there, you know what these people are doing. By them executing me, ain’t doing nothing right. I don’t weigh 180 pounds, 5-foot-7.” After Cooks finished his statement, he said, “Do what you do, warden.” The lethal injection was begun, and Cooks was pronounced dead at 6:28 p.m.
Tracy Dewayne Stallworth and Tony Ray Harvey were convicted of several crimes including aggravated robbery. All sentences were set to run concurrently, with each man’s longest sentence being 20 years. News reports did not provide any information on either man’s current status, but public records show that Stallworth renewed his driver’s license in 1992.
http://www.txexecutions.org/reports/256.asp
