HUNTSVILLE, Texas – A Texas man who had waived his right to appeal his death sentence received a lethal injection Tuesday evening for killing his 3-month-old son more than 16 years ago, one of five executions scheduled within a week’s time in the U.S.
Travis Mullis, 38, was pronounced dead at 7:01 p.m. CDT following the injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville. He was condemned for stomping to death his son Alijah in January 2008.
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“I'd like to thank everyone ... that accepted me for the man I became during my best and worst moments,” Mullis, while strapped to the death chamber gurney, said after his spiritual adviser offered a brief prayer over him.
He also thanked prison officials and staff for “changes made across the system” that allowed “even the men on death row to show it is possible to be rehabilitated and not deemed a threat and not the men we were when we came into this system.”
He added that while he “took the legal steps to expedite to include assisted suicide, I don't regret this decision, to legally expedite this process. ... I do regret the decision to take the life of my son.” He apologized to his son's mother, to her family and said he had no ill will toward anyone involved in the punishment.
“It was my decision that put me here,” he said.
The execution was delayed about 20 minutes while technicians worked to find a suitable vein. One needle carrying the lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital was inserted in his right arm, the usual procedure. A second needle, rather than entering his left arm, was inserted in his left foot.
He closed his eyes as the drug began taking effect and took seven barely audible breaths before his breathing abruptly stopped. He was pronounced dead 20 minutes late
Mullis was the fourth inmate put to death this year in Texas, the nation’s busiest capital punishment state. Another execution was carried out Tuesday evening in Missouri, and executions were also scheduled to take place Thursday in Oklahoma and Alabama. South Carolina conducted an execution Friday.
Authorities said Mullis, then 21 and living in Brazoria County, drove to nearby Galveston with his son after fighting with his girlfriend. Mullis parked his car and sexually assaulted his son. After the infant began to cry uncontrollably, Mullis began strangling the child before taking him out of the car and stomping on his head, according to authorities.
The infant’s body was later found on the roadside. Mullis fled the state but was later arrested after surrendering to police in Philadelphia.
Mullis’ execution proceeded after one of his attorneys, Shawn Nolan, said Tuesday afternoon that he planned no late appeals in a bid to spare the inmate's life. Nolan also said in a statement that Texas would be executing a “redeemed man” who has always accepted responsibility for committing “an awful crime.”
In a letter submitted in February to U.S. District Judge George Hanks in Houston, Mullis wrote that he had no desire to challenge his case any further. Mullis has previously taken responsibility for his son’s death and has said “his punishment fit the crime.”
At Mullis’ trial, prosecutors said Mullis was a “monster” who manipulated people, was deceitful and refused the medical and psychiatric help he had been offered.
Since his conviction in 2011, Mullis has long been at odds with his various attorneys over whether to appeal his case. At times, Mullis had asked that his appeals be waived, only to later change his mind.
The U.S. Supreme Court has prohibited the application of the death penalty for the intellectually disabled, but not for people with serious mental illness.
If the scheduled executions in Alabama and Oklahoma are carried out as planned, it will mark the first time in more than 20 years — since July 2003 — that five were held in seven days, according to the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, which takes no position on capital punishment but has criticized the way states carry out executions.
The first took place Friday when South Carolina put inmate Freddie Owens to death. Also Tuesday, Marcellus Williams was executed in Missouri. On Thursday, executions are scheduled for Alan Miller in Alabama and Emmanuel Littlejohn in Oklahoma.
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Lozano reported from Houston.
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