Missouri Executes Killer of Elderly Woman And Son

POTOSI, Mo. - A Missouri man who murdered an elderly woman and her son during a robbery at their home was put to death early Wednesday, nine months after his partner in the crime was executed. Tomas Ervin, 50, died at 12:04 a.m. CST after being injected with a lethal combination of drugs at the Potosi Correctional Center in Missouri. Ervin and accomplice Bert Hunter both were sentenced to death for killing 75-year-old Mildred Hodges and her 49-year-old son Richard Hodges in a home invasion and robbery attempt. Missouri executed Hunter on June 28, 2000. Authorities said the two men were on a cross-country robbery spree when they broke into the Hodges' Jefferson City home December 15, 1988. Richard Hodges pleaded with the men not to harm his mother, who was recovering from heart surgery. But Ervin and Hunter bound the hands and feet of the woman and her son and then suffocated them with plastic bags placed over their heads, authorities said. Ervin protested his innocence and sought to overturn his death sentence. After a last meal of steak, shrimp, and corn, he made a final statement attacking the system that put him to death: ``When the courts of this nation refused to afford a condemned prisoner the opportunity to prove that he is actually innocent of the crimes for which he stands condemned, the capital punishment system is broken,'' Ervin said. ``The courts refused me that opportunity and so tonight ... the state of Missouri executes an innocent man.'' Ervin was the second man executed this year in Missouri, and the 48th put to death in Missouri since capital punishment was reinstated here in 1989. scheduled execution on March 6 of 26-year-old Antonio Richardson was halted by a U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) ruling. The high court ordered a stay of execution to evaluate arguments about whether or not it is constitutional to apply the death penalty to mentally retarded individuals.