A member of the infamous Texas 7, who attended Rockdale High School 41 years ago, has avoided lethal injection execution for his role in the 2000 shooting of a Dallas area police officer in the state’s death chamber in Huntsville.
At least for now.
Patrick Murphy, who came within two hours of being executed Thursday, was granted a “stay” by the U.S. Supreme Court after his attorneys successfully argued Murphy’s religious freedom would be violated if his spiritual advisor was not allowed to be in the death chamber during the execution.
Murphy, who attended Rockdale High School in 1978, has been sentenced to death for the shooting of Irving Police Ofc. Aubrey Hawkins on Christmas Eve, 2000, after he and six others escaped from a Kenedy, Texas, prison two weeks previously.
He is the next to the last of the infamous septet still living. Four have been executed, one committed suicide to avoid being captured and an execution date has not been set.
LOCAL LINKS—In 2001, just weeks after the arrest of the remaining six escapees, Murphy’s father, Patrick Murphy Sr., visited him in prison before the breakout and listed a Rockdale address.
Police Chief Thomas Harris told The Reporter at the time that the family had indeed once lived in the area but had not resided in Milam County for a considerable period of time.
Some Milam residents had begun to fear the notorious Texas 7 might have been hiding out in the area following their daring prison break.
The senior Murphy had listed only a post office box as an address.
Those fears turned out not to have been warranted as the seven were arrested on Jan. 17, 2001, in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Some classmates still living in the Rockdale area remembered Murphy at the time and his photo appeared as a sophomore in the 1978 Lair, the Rockdale High School yearbook.
15 MONTHS—Murphy had been serving 50 years for rape, but was only 15 months short of being released on mandatory parole when the Texas 7 escaped.
According to investigators the seven committed numerous robberies during their period of freedom and were in the process of one at a Dallas-area sporting goods store on Dec. 24, 2000.
Irving police Ofc. Aubrey Hawkins, 29, has just finished Christmas Eve dinner with his family when he answered the call to the store and was ambushed.
Hawkins was shot 11 times.
Prosecutors maintained while Murphy didn’t pull a trigger, he was the lookout at the robbery and alerted the other six that the officer was coming, allowing them to set up the ambush.
Murphy was convicted on Texas’ law of parties, which holds a person responsible for the actions of others if they are engaged in conspiracy.
STAY—The Supreme Court’s stay did not overturn Murphy’s death sentence, it held the state cannot move forward until certain conditions are met.
Murphy became a Buddhist while in prison and asked to have a Buddhist spiritual advisor with him.
The state argued, citing security concerns, only chaplains who have been extensively vetted by the prison system are allowed within the death chamber and that while Christian and Muslim chaplains were available on Thursday no Buddhist priest was.
Murphy’s attorneys had previously asked the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to stop the execution and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to recommend either a commutation or a 90-day reprieve.
Both those appeals failed.
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