HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A Texas man was executed Wednesday evening for fatally stabbing his girlfriend and her 8-year-old son nearly 13 years ago.
Cedric Ricks, 51, was pronounced dead at 6:55 p.m. CDT following a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville.
He was sentenced to death for the May 2013 killings of 30-yea-rold Roxann Sanchez and her son Anthony Figueroa at their apartment in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Bedford.
Sanchez’s 12-year-old son, Marcus Figueroa, was also stabbed but survived.
Prosecutors said Ricks and Sanchez had been arguing in their apartment when the woman's two sons from a previous marriage tried to break up the fight. Ricks grabbed a knife from the kitchen and began to stab Sanchez multiple times, court records showed.
Marcus Figueroa ran to his bedroom closet and tried to call police. After killing Anthony Figueroa, Ricks began stabbing Marcus Figueroa, who played dead until his attacker left the apartment, according to authorities. Ricks did not harm his own then-9-month-old son Isaiah, according to court records. Ricks fled and was later arrested in Oklahoma.
During his capital murder trial, Ricks testified that he had anger issues and had been defending himself against the two boys after they had come to their mother’s defense.
“Explaining my rage, I was upset. Things happen. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I wish I could bring them back, like, right now,” said Ricks, who also apologized for the killings.
A day before the stabbings, Ricks had appeared in court after having been charged with assaulting Sanchez during a previous incident.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Ricks' final appeal without comment. His attorneys had argued that prosecutors violated Ricks’ constitutional rights by eliminating potential jurors on the basis of race during jury selection.
The Texas Attorney General’s Office said court records show the prosecution’s jury selection decisions were “race neutral” and lower courts have already concluded that prosecutors’ actions were not discriminatory.
Ricks “viciously stabbed his girlfriend Roxann and her eight-year-old son Anthony to death,” the attorney general’s office said, adding the public had a “strong interest” in seeing the death sentence carried out.
And earlier this week, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles denied Ricks’ request to commute his death sentence or grant a 90-day reprieve.
Ricks was the second person put to death this year in Texas and the sixth in the country. Texas has historically held more executions than any other state.
Charles “Sonny” Burton, a 75-year-old inmate in Alabama, had been scheduled for execution Thursday. But Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Monday commuted his death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Burton had been condemned for a fatal shooting during a 1991 robbery even though he didn’t pull the trigger.
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Lozano reported from Houston. Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://x.com/juanlozano70
