Texas executes man for murder of girlfriend, child
He was executed by lethal injection.
HOUSTON - A Texas man who stabbed his girlfriend and her eight-year-old son to death was executed by lethal injection on Wednesday.
Cedric Ricks, 51, was sentenced to death in 2014 for the murders the previous year of Roxann Sanchez, 30, and Anthony Figueroa, her son from a previous marriage.
Ricks also attacked Sanchez's 12-year-son Marcus but he survived more than two dozen stab wounds by feigning death and testified against him at trial.
Ricks was pronounced deceased at 6.55pm Central Time (2355 GMT), a statement from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said.
Five other executions have been carried out in the United States this year -- three in Florida, one in Texas and one in Oklahoma.
An Alabama man had been scheduled to be executed on Thursday but the governor of the southern state commuted his sentence on Tuesday to life in prison without parole.
Charles Burton, 75, was sentenced to death although he did not pull the trigger in the 1991 shooting for which he was convicted.
Republican Governor Kay Ivey said it would be "unjust" to execute Burton as he was outside the building when his accomplice shot dead a man during a robbery.
There were 47 executions in the United States last year, the most since 2009, when 52 people were put to death.
Florida carried out the most executions in 2025, with 19, followed by Alabama, South Carolina and Texas, where there were five each.
Thirty-nine of last year's executions were carried out by lethal injection.
Three were by firing squad and five by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a face mask, causing the prisoner to suffocate.
The use of nitrogen gas as a method of capital punishment has been denounced by United Nations experts as cruel and inhumane.
The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others -- California, Oregon and Pennsylvania -- have moratoriums in place.
President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and has called for an expansion of its use "for the vilest crimes." - AFP
Download Sinar Daily application.Click Here!
