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USA - Texas. Travis Mullis, 38, White, was executed on September 24
September 24, 2024: September 24, 2024 - Texas. Travis Mullis, 38, White, was executed on September 24
For killing his 3-month-old son Alijah in 2008
Mullis waived his right to appeal his 2011 death sentence.
Mullis was executed by lethal injection and pronounced dead at 7:01 p.m.,
No members of his family attended the execution.
A woman listed by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice as a friend of Mullis’s did witness the execution.
Mullis used his last words to thank and apologize to loved ones, including the mother of his child and the victim's family.
He thanked everyone, but specifically shouted out all of his friends, pen pals and all the people in his corner inside and outside, even on Death Row, who "accepted me for the man I became during my best and worst moments."
"I want to thank the field ministers, the Warden, and the correctional staff for all the changes being made across the system," Mullis said. "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 the system. We have changed. We are not the same."
Mullis said that he took the "legal steps" to expedite his death sentence, which he referred to as "assisted suicide" and that he doesn't regret it. But that he did regret killing his son, Alijah.
"I do regret the decision to take the life of my son. I apologize to the mother of my son, the victim's family," he said. "I have no ill will towards the court, the judicial system, the prosecution or the execution protocol. The morality of execution is between you and God ... It was my decision that put me here. I'm ready Warden.”
Mullis was convicted of murdering his 3-month-old son Alijah, who was molested, stomped to death and abandoned south of Houston. Mullis, who was 21 at the time, said he had reached a "breaking point" the day he killed Alijah after the baby wouldn't stop crying. He threw his body on the side of the road. Alijah’s body was found, along with his car seat and other items, by a passer-by.
Mullis confessed to the crime in 2008 after driving for three days and eventually winding up at a police station in Philadelphia. Mullis wrote a six-page long statement and gave an hour-long videotaped confession to two homicide detectives.
“I regret everything that I’ve done, and I’m willing to take any and all consequences that come about the situation,” Mullis said during his confession on Feb. 1, 2008.
Mullis explained on Jan. 29, 2008, he, his girlfriend and newborn son were living with a friend because they didn’t have money for a place of their own. Around 2 a.m., his girlfriend asked him to go to the store to get cigarettes and candy bars. Mullis said he woke up his friend’s 8-year-old daughter and asked her to accompany him to the store. Mullis said on the way back from the store he stopped at the little girl’s school, and they both walked to the playground.
“At that time, I had asked her to take her pants off, she said, ‘no.’ She started to cry, she got scared, I also got startled,” Mullis told detectives. “I was upset about what I was doing. I knew that it was wrong. So, I told her, ‘Let’s just go home.’”
Mullis said when he returned home, he told his girlfriend what happened.
Mullis said he told his girlfriend he needed to leave for a little while to figure out next steps.
“She told me to take Alijah with me.
Mullis said he then drove while his son was asleep in the back seat. Mullis said his son then woke up and started crying. Mullis said he then hopped in the back seat and tried to console his son, but nothing worked.
“I had hit my breaking point with stress, and I was, you know, scared. I was panicking, I, you know, hit my breaking point and I broke at that point, I felt that the only way to make him stop crying was to kill him,” Mullis confessed.
Mullis said he strangled his son then stomped on his skull
Mullis was then convicted in 2011 of capital murder. While he made no mention in his confession, prosecutors said Mullis also molested his infant son.
Mullis becomes the 4th inmate put to death this year in Texas, the 590th overall since Texas resumed capital punishment in 1982, the 16th this year in the US, and the n. 1598 since the nation resumed executions in 1977.
https://www.click2houston.com/news/investigates/2024/09/25/man-executed-for-the-2008-murder-of-infant-son-in-galveston/
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/09/24/texas-travis-mullis-execution/75351792007/ (Source: click2houston, 24/09/2024)
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