HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- Texas executed on Tuesday a man convicted of the 1987 killings of a father and his infant son and who three years later at his capital murder trial grabbed a loaded gun from a drawer in the courtroom and tried to attack the judge.
James Bigby, 61, became the fourth inmate in Texas and the sixth nationally to be executed by injection this year.
Strapped to the death chamber gurney, Bigby looked directly at six relatives of his victims watching through a window a few feet from him and repeatedly said he was sorry.
"I hope this will bring you peace and I'm sorry for all the pain and suffering," he told them, his voice cracking at times. "I hope that you could forgive me, but if you don't, I understand. I don't think I could forgive anyone who would have killed my children."
As the lethal dose of pentobarbital began, he prayed and said several times: "I promise, I'm sorry." He was singing "Jesus Loves Me" as the drug took effect, took a few breaths, started snoring and then stopped all movement.
Fourteen minutes later, at 6:31 p.m., he was pronounced dead.
Bigby was condemned for the fatal shooting of Michael Trekell, 26, and suffocation of Trekell's 4-month-old son, Jayson, at their home in Arlington on Christmas Eve 1987. Evidence showed Bigby also was accused of, but not tried for, killing two other men, believing they along with Trekell were conspiring against him in a workers' compensation case he filed against a former employer.
Trekell's sister and the child's aunt, Deborah Trekell-Jameson, released a statement after the execution saying she witnessed Bigby's death not to judge him, but to "support the completion of what James Bigby began with my family almost 30 years ago ... when he committed such a heinous crime.
"This day will be yet another remembrance in the history that was forever changed by James Bigby for our families," she said.
Bigby was arrested after a police standoff days after the killings, telling a SWAT officer in Fort Worth, "I know I am guilty, and so do you."
Bigby had asked that no last-day appeals be filed for him.
A Section on 03/15/2017