TEXAS: Ex-Aldine football star executed for Houston slaying

NOVEMBER 9, 2004 - A former football hero and celebrity at Aldine High School was executed this evening for killing a man 10 years ago.

Seconds before he was executed, Demarco McCullum said he loved his mother and expected to see her in heaven.

"I just want to say to all those who supported me over the years that I appreciate it and love you," McCullum said. "I just want to let my mom know that I love her and I will see her in heaven."

McCullum, 30, was convicted of capital murder for the July 29, 1994 robbery and shooting death of Michael Burzinski, 29.

Burzinski's family members, who witnessed the execution, said they were relieved the sentence was completed.

"I'm sure he was nervous. I'm sure he was afraid and possibly it gave him a slight taste of what our Michael went through 10 years ago," Kay Burzinski, Burzinski's mother, said after McCullum died.

She said the execution did not bring closure, that closure and recovering from the loss of a loved one to violent crime was difficult. She said she felt her son was with her Tuesday before the execution.

"When I looked out at the beautiful sunset about 5:30, I had the feeling my son was with me," she said.

A doctor pronounced McCullum dead at 6:17 p.m.

He was the 6th inmate who was convicted in Harris County inmate and the 21st in the state to be executed this year. Today, another Harris County inmate, Freddie McWilliams, is scheduled to be executed for the September 1996 murder of Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., a 39-year-old meat truck driver. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied McCullum's request for clemency Friday. His appeals also were denied.

He asked authorities to have his body be donated to science.

McCullum seemed poised for success in 1994, the year he graduated from Aldine.

He was the Mustangs starting quarterback, won a football scholarship to Tyler Junior College and was admired by teachers and coaches for his courteous, respectful behavior. Friendly and sociable, he was voted Mr. Aldine by his classmates.

But he had dark side.

Prosecutors said he took part in a violent crime spree in the summer of that year.

In addition to killing Burzinski, they said, he attacked several people and shot a man in the spine, paralyzing him. McCullum denied that shooting.

McCullum and 3 Aldine teammates -- Terrance Perro, 29, Decedrick Gainous, 29 and Chris Lewis, 27 -- attacked Burzinski, who was openly gay, as he left a Montrose bar July 29. Police said they beat Burzinski and drove him in his car to a bank, where they used his ATM card to withdraw $400 from his account.

Then they drove to a secluded area in north Harris County off Interstate 45 and pulled him from the car. Perro said he begged McCullum not to shoot Burzinski. He said McCullum walked with Burzinski away from the car. Then he heard 1 shot.

Prosecutors said Burzinski appeared to have been shot once in the back of the head. In an interview from death row a few days before he was put to death, McCullum said killing Burzinski was wrong, but he couldn't stop himself from doing it. It was "like a ball going downhill so far, it just goes," he said. He didn't consider the consequences of his actions.

Perro pleaded no contest to aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon and Gainous was convicted of capital murder. Both are serving life sentences. Lewis pleaded no contest to aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. He was recently paroled.

McCullum becomes the 334th condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982. McCullum becomes the 95th condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas since Rick Perry became governor in 2000.

McCullum becomes the 56th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 941st overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1977.

NOVEMBER 10, 2004:

TEXAS: Killer who's outlived own predictions executed

Condemned killer Frederick McWilliams, 30, was executed tonight for the fatal shooting of a man in Houston 8 years ago during a car theft.

"Well, here we are again folks in the catacombs of justice," McWilliams said when asked by the warden if he had a final statement.

He said there was much he wanted to say but "not a whole to say."

"There are people that will be mad thinking I try to seek freedom from this, but as long as I see, freedom belongs to me and I'll keep on keeping on," he said. "The shackles and chains that just might hold my body can't hold my mind, but will kill me otherwise."

McWilliams then told his mother, who watched through a window a few feet away, a sister and several friends that he loved them and would never stop.

10 minutes later, at 6:18 p.m. CST, he was pronounced dead.

McWilliams, a former warehouse worker whose hopes for a career as an architect were derailed by armed robbery convictions, was on probation when he was arrested for the beating and shooting of Alfonso Rodriguez at a Houston apartment complex.

The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year refused to review McWilliams' case and his attorney said appeals possibilities were exhausted. A clemency petition and a request for a 180-day reprieve were both rejected by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles.

At the time of the slaying, McWilliams was on probation for armed robberies and had been linked to other holdups.

"I never enjoyed doing things like that," he said recently from a small cage-like cubicle in the visiting area outside death row. "I just felt in a helpless situation at the time."

Court records show McWilliams, a cousin, Richard Hawkins, and a third man, Kenneth Adams, were driving around Houston the night of Sept. 27, 1996, and discussed the prospect of stealing a car.

"We were going to use the car as a getaway vehicle for a crime the next day," McWilliams said. "My job was to steal the car."

As Hawkins dozed in the back seat of their car, McWilliams and Adams selected a 1983 Chevrolet in the parking lot of an apartment complex only to find Alfonso Rodriguez sleeping inside. They then returned to their own car. According to testimony, Adams told McWilliams he should have gotten the man and the two decided to go back, this time armed.

Rodriguez was pulled from the driver's side at gunpoint and was beaten by Adams as McWilliams rifled through the glove box. According to McWilliams, Adams and Rodriguez were wrestling and Adams dropped his weapon in the struggle. Rodriguez grabbed he gun.

"The victim rushed me. He had his hand on the pistol. I had a hand on the pistol," McWilliams said. "I don't know if he pulled the trigger or I pulled the trigger.

"The gun went off."

A week later, Adams was stopped for speeding and police found guns in his car, including one tied to the Rodriguez slaying. He told them McWilliams was the gunman, leading to McWilliams' arrest, subsequent trial and death sentence.

"I never intended to kill anybody," McWilliams said from prison.

Hawkins, now 27, received an 8-year prison term. Adams, now 26, received a life sentence.

"Not a day goes by that I don't wish I could take that whole day back," said McWilliams, whose middle name is Patrick and is known on death row as "Freddie P." 3 of his upper front teeth were capped in gold with the initials P, E and E engraved in gothic letters.

It's uncertain why Rodriguez was asleep in his car that night. A half brother, Melchor Hernandez, told the Houston Chronicle that Rodriguez had a daughter, was a truck driver, worked hard, loved rock music and "never got in trouble with the law."

McWilliams becomes the 22nd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 335th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982. Anthony Fuentes and Troy Kunkle are set to be executed on successive nights in Texas next week.

McWilliams becomes the 96th condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas since Rick Perry became governor in 2000.

On Tuesday night, Demarco McCullum, 30, received lethal injection for the abduction, robbery, beating and fatal shooting 10 years ago of Michael Burzinski, 29, in Houston.

If the 2 executions scheduled for next week and another in December are carried out, the 25 executions for the year in Texas would be one more than in 2003. A record 40 took place in 2000.

McWilliams becomes the 57th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 942nd overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1977.