12 March 2026 :
March 11, 2026 - Texas. Cedric Ricks, 51, Black, was executed on March 11.
Ricks received a lethal injection after 6pm central time at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, about 70 miles north of Houston. He was pronounced dead at 6:55 p.m..
Cedric Ricks was sentenced to death in May 2014 for the May 1, 2013 murder of 30-year-old Roxann Sanchez and her 8-year-old son Anthony at their apartment in Bedford.
That day Cedrick Ricks and his girlfriend Roxann Sanchez got into an argument that quickly turned physical, according to court records.
Sanchez's two sons from a previous marriage, 8-year-old Anthony and 12-year-old Marcus, tried to intervene by getting between the couple but Ricks was too powerful. He pushed the boys down and continued punching their mother before he ran to get a knife from the kitchen.
Ricks then began stabbing Sanchez while Marcus ran to call police. Ricks ran the boy down, began stabbing him and then began stabbing Anthony. A 9-month-old son shared by Ricks and Sanchez was left unharmed.
After the attack, Ricks put the knife back in the kitchen, showered, packed some clothes, put his 9-month-old son, Isaiah, into his crib and left the apartment. Police later tracked him down to Oklahoma and arrested him.
A jury found Ricks guilty of capital murder following a two-week trial during which Marcus testified against him.
Ricks also testified, telling the jurors deciding his fate that he wanted to die.
The now-25-year-old Marcus was among seven family members who witnessed Ricks' execution. Marcus, whose scars from the attack were visible on the back of his neck, showed no emotion as Ricks tearfully apologized to him, according to a media witness with the Associated Press.
“I want to say that I’m sorry for taking Roxann and Anthony from y’all,” Ricks said just moments before the lethal drugs course through his veins, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. “I can't imagine the pain it has caused you, I’m glad to be able to speak to tell y’all that face to face.”
Ricks' attorneys had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the execution, arguing in a recent filing that trial prosecutors eliminated jurors based on their race in violation of his constitutional rights. The court declined to intervene.
In letters to his sons from death row, Ricks wrote about some of his regrets but offered little explanation for the violence he committed, according to a book written by a friend called "These Dry Bones, Redemption from Death Row."
"Sometimes I wake up kicking and screaming for what I have done to you," he wrote to his sons. "I can’t say sorry enough for what I’ve done ... My prayer is that you can forgive me. My prayer is that you both will carry on the legacy of who I have become in Christ, and not who I use to be."
Cedric Ricks becomes the 2nd execution in Texas this year and the 597th since Texas resumed executions in 1982. Ricks’ is the 6th execution of 2026 in the US, and the 1,660th since the nation resumed executions in 1977.
https://www.fox4news.com/news/cedric-ricks-execution
