The state of Texas executed Christopher Chubasco Wilkins by lethal injection on Wednesday, January 11, 2017, at the Huntsville Unit, ending a nine-year stay on death row for a double murder that prosecutors described as the work of a classic outlaw with no regard for human life. Wilkins, 48, was pronounced dead at 6:29 p. m.
, 13 minutes after the lethal dose of pentobarbital began flowing into his veins, making him the first person executed in the United States in 2017. In his final moments, Wilkins declined to make a formal oral statement but mouthed the words “I’m sorry” twice toward a witness window where two relatives of his victims sat watching. The execution brought closure to a case that began with a series of violent crimes in October 2005, when Wilkins terrorized Fort Worth, Texas, killing three men in three days over disputes as trivial as a $20 πΉπππ scam and an annoyance at a payphone.
Wilkins’ path to the death chamber was marked by a lifetime of violence, crime, and prison stints that began long before the murders that defined his final chapter. Born on September 29, 1968, Wilkins spent years in and out of jails and prisons on weapons and πΉπππ convictions, serving time in California and accumulating a federal gun possession conviction. In early October 2005, after completing his sentence for that federal conviction, Wilkins was released to a halfway house in Houston, Texas, a transition period meant to help him reintegrate into society under supervision.
But Wilkins had no interest in following rules, and within days of arriving, he stole a truck and drove to Fort Worth, aimless and dangerous, looking for trouble. He was a heavily tattooed man covered in pentagrams, Satanist imagery, and white supremacist symbols, the kind of person prosecutors would later describe as an outlaw in the model of Billy the Kid, living by his own rules with no regard for human life.
The first murder occurred on October 26, 2005, when Wilkins shot and killed 47-year-old Gilbert Vallejo outside a bar in South Fort Worth over a dispute at a payphone. Vallejo was disturbing Wilkins and cursing at him in Spanish, according to Wilkins, and that was the entire reason for the killing. Wilkins pulled out a gun and shot Vallejo dead, leaving his body outside the bar, a murder that prosecutors later decided not to charge him for because they already had him dead to rights on two other killings.
The next day, October 27, 2005, Wilkins reached out to Willie Freeman, a 40-year-old homeless πΉπππ dealer who had scammed Wilkins out of $20 by selling him a piece of gravel instead of crack cocaine. Freeman had since apologized and given Wilkins real drugs to make up for the scam, but Wilkins had already decided he was going to ππΎππ Freeman for making him look like a fool. Wilkins told Freeman he had guns and drugs stashed on the west side of Fort Worth and needed a ride to pick them up, luring Freeman and his supplier, 33-year-old Mike Silva, into a trap.
On the morning of October 28, 2005, Silva picked up Freeman and Wilkins, with Freeman in the front passenger seat and Wilkins in the back. Silva drove following Wilkins’ directions toward a deserted stretch of road on the west side of Fort Worth, where there were no houses, no businesses, and no witnesses. While Silva was still driving, Wilkins pulled out a gun, aimed at the back of Freeman’s head, and pulled the trigger, killing him instantly as blood and brain matter splattered across the windshield.
Silva slammed on the brakes and tried to unbuckle his seatbelt, but it jammed, trapping him in the driver’s seat as Wilkins fired once into his neck, then twice more into his head, killing him. Wilkins climbed over the seat, pushed Silva’s body aside, and took control of the vehicle, driving with Silva’s body still partially hanging out until he cut the seatbelt with a knife and dumped both bodies in a ditch on the side of the road.
Before driving away, Wilkins carved the numbers 666 and a pentagram into the hood of Silva’s SUV, a chilling signature matching the Satanist tattoos covering his own body. He then drove off in the stolen vehicle, his fingerprints and DNA all over the scene, showing no concern about getting caught, as he had told people for years that he was trying to get himself killed. Over the next few hours, Wilkins drove through Fort Worth looking for his next victim, picking up a prostitute and using a stolen Ford Explorer to try to run down two people he believed had taken his sunglasses.
The prostitute became terrified and called 911 when Wilkins stopped at a convenience store, leading to a high-speed chase through Fort Worth and into Haltom City, with Wilkins weaving through traffic, running red lights, and driving on the wrong side of the road. He eventually crashed the SUV into a barrier and fled on foot, but police tackled him and wrestled him to the ground as he screamed, “ππΎππ me, just ππΎππ me,” wanting them to end his life right there on the street.
When police searched the wrecked vehicle, they found methamphetamine and stolen property, and they soon discovered Wilkins was a fugitive from the Houston halfway house, but they had no idea yet that he had committed three murders in three days. In the interrogation room, Wilkins shocked even seasoned investigators by confessing to everything, describing how he shot Freeman and Silva, dumped their bodies, and carved 666 and a pentagram into the SUV, as well as admitting to killing Vallejo the day before. He also confessed to other murders and crimes in several states, though many of these confessions could not be matched to any reported offenses, leading defense attorneys to argue that his willingness to lie about some murders weakened the credibility of his real confessions.
But the evidence was overwhelming, with Wilkins’ fingerprints all over the SUV, the bodies found exactly where he said they would be, and the carvings matching his tattoos, proving this was no false confession.
While awaiting trial, Wilkins continued his violent behavior, plotting an escape by swallowing a handcuff key and hiding it inside his body, and making a makeshift knife out of materials in his cell, which jail staff discovered before he could use them. His trial began in March 2008, nearly two and a half years after the murders, with Wilkins charged with capital murder for the deaths of Freeman and Silva, while prosecutors introduced evidence of Vallejo’s killing to show his pattern of violence. The lead prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Kevin Rousseau, called Wilkins a lifelong criminal and an outlaw in the classic sense, painting a picture of a man who had spent his entire life breaking laws and reveling in chaos.
Defense attorney Wes Ball faced an almost impossible task, as his client had confessed and the evidence was overwhelming, so he put Wilkins on the witness stand in a risky strategy, hoping his brutal honesty might make the jury see him as a broken man rather than a monster.
Wilkins testified for hours, admitting everything without trying to sugarcoat his actions, saying he killed Freeman and Silva because they laughed at him after tricking him out of $20, and he killed Vallejo over a dispute at a payphone. He told the jury, “I know they are bad decisions, I make them anyway,” describing himself as someone with a short fuse who didn’t think about what he was doing when he got wound up. When the jury sent him a written question asking what sentence he wanted, Wilkins responded, “You tell the judge get a rope or not,” showing a ππ½πΈπΈππΎππ indifference to whether he lived or died.
The jury deliberated for just 90 minutes, one of the fastest death penalty deliberations on record, and returned with a sentence of death, with Wilkins showing no visible reaction as the verdict was read.
Wilkins was transported to the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas, where he spent the next nine years on death row, proving over and over again that he was exactly the kind of man the jury thought he was. He attacked staff numerous times, threw bodily fluids at officers, and used homemade weapons on them, with Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark confirming that Wilkins had a pattern of violent behavior on death row. His appeals were plagued by a conflict of interest so egregious that it shocked even seasoned legal observers, as his state post-conviction lawyer, Jack Strickland, accepted a position with the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office while still representing Wilkins.
Strickland filed a habeas application on Wilkins’ behalf that only presented claims that were procedurally barred or not reviewable, leading Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Elsa Alcala to describe it as a petition that appeared to have wholly failed to act as counsel.
Wilkins repeatedly tried to fire Strickland, but the state court refused to appoint new counsel, and when the case moved to federal court, his new lawyer faced additional obstacles. The federal district court judge refused to provide funding to investigate Wilkins’ case, and the lawyer was given only 45 days to prepare a federal habeas petition, an absurdly short amount of time for a capital case. When the lawyer filed the petition, the court denied it because Wilkins had not presented evidence that an investigation would have developed, creating a catch-22 where he couldn’t get funding for an investigation and then his petition was denied for lacking that evidence.
Judge Alcala dissented from the decision to deny Wilkins relief, arguing that the defective petition Strickland filed should be considered a nullity and that Wilkins never got his fair shot at a habeas appeal, but she was outvoted by the majority of the court.
Wilkins’ current lawyer, Hillary Sheard, argued that Wilkins suffered from significant cognitive deficits that had never been fully examined due to the lack of funding, filing a petition with the US Supreme Court arguing that federal law entitled him to investigative and expert services. But the Supreme Court was not interested, and Wilkins’ first execution date was set for October 28, 2015, exactly 10 years to the day after his arrest, though it was stayed at the request of Tarrant County prosecutors due to concerns about DNA evidence. The execution was rescheduled to January 11, 2017, a date that would stick, and on that day, Wilkins woke knowing it was his last on Earth, spending most of his time visiting with about 10 friends he had met in prison.
Attorney Sheard issued a statement saying she was saddened and troubled by the court’s denials of relief, believing Wilkins had not received a fair shake in the legal system due to the conflict of interest and lack of funding.
There is no public record of what Wilkins ate for his last meal, as Texas stopped releasing that information in 2011 after a controversy involving Lawrence Russell Brewer, who requested an enormous last meal and then refused to eat any of it. Shortly after 6:00 p. m.
, Wilkins was escorted from his holding cell to the execution chamber at the Huntsville Unit, where he was strapped to a gurney with IV lines inserted into his veins. The πΉπππ that would ππΎππ him was pentobarbital, a barbiturate that renders the condemned unconscious, stops their breathing, and stops their heart, and before the injection began, Warden Gary Gibson asked Wilkins if he had any final words. Wilkins turned his head toward the witness window where two relatives of the victims sat watching and mouthed the words “I’m sorry” twice, the closest thing to remorse he had ever shown after spending his entire trial acting indifferent and telling the jury to get a rope or not.
At approximately 6:16 p. m. , the lethal injection began flowing into Wilkins’ veins, and the πΉπππ worked quickly, with his eyes closing, his breathing slowing, and his body going still.
At 6:29 p. m. , 13 minutes after the injection began, Christopher Chubasco Wilkins was pronounced dead, becoming the first person executed in the United States and the first in Texas in 2017.
His execution came at a time when the use of the death penalty nationwide was declining, with only 20 executions carried out in 2016, the lowest number since the early 1980s, and Texas itself had carried out only seven executions in 2016, the fewest since 1996. Tarrant County, which has executed 39 people since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, making it the fourth most active county in Texas for executions, had three other executions scheduled through April 2017. After the execution, prosecutor Kevin Rousseau spoke to the media, saying, “This guy was a lifelong criminal, he was just an outlaw in the classic sense of the word,” believing Wilkins had earned his place on death row.
The families of Willie Freeman and Mike Silva, who had waited more than 11 years for justice, finally had closure, with two relatives who attended the execution leaving without speaking to reporters. The case of Christopher Wilkins raises questions that have no easy answers, whether he was a product of a broken system with cognitive deficits and a troubled childhood who never received the help he needed, or simply evil, a man who chose violence over and over again because he enjoyed it. His own words suggest the latter, as he told the jury, “I know they are bad decisions, I make them anyway,” showing he knew what he was doing was wrong but just didn’t care.
He killed Willie Freeman because Freeman laughed at him, he killed Mike Silva because Silva was there, and he killed Gilbert Vallejo because Vallejo annoyed him at a payphone, cold, calculated murders committed by a man who valued human life at exactly zero.
The legal system’s handling of Wilkins’ appeals was deeply flawed, with the conflict of interest involving Jack Strickland, his post-conviction attorney who took a job with the district attorney’s office while still representing Wilkins, being an egregious violation of legal ethics. The refusal to provide funding for an investigation into Wilkins’ cognitive deficits denied him the opportunity to present a complete defense, and Judge Elsa Alcala was right to dissent, arguing that Wilkins may have deserved to die for his crimes but also deserved a fair process. The fact that he didn’t get one is a stain on the Texas justice system, but what is clear is that three people are dead because of Christopher Wilkins.
Willie Freeman, a 40-year-old homeless man who made a living dealing drugs, was shot in the back of the head while sitting in the front seat of a car, and Mike Silva, a 33-year-old πΉπππ supplier, was shot three times while trying to escape, his body dumped in a ditch on the side of the road. Gilbert Vallejo, a 47-year-old man who made the mistake of annoying Christopher Wilkins at a payphone, was shot and killed outside a bar, none of these men innocent but none deserving to die the way they did.
The families they left behind, families who mourned them and waited more than a decade for justice, deserved better than to watch a flawed legal process play out over nine years of appeals. Christopher Wilkins told jurors during his trial that he had been trying to get himself killed since he was 12 or 13 years old, living recklessly, violently, and carelessly for decades as if daring the universe to end his life. He committed crimes, attacked people, murdered three men in three days, carved 666 and a pentagram into a car hood, fought with police, told them to ππΎππ him, and when he finally stood trial for murder, he told the jury to get a rope or not.
It was a lifelong death wish, and on January 11, 2017, that wish was finally granted, with the case of Christopher Chubasco Wilkins now closed, a lifelong criminal who killed three and was sentenced to death, nine years on death row marked by violence and appeals plagued by conflicts of interest. On a cold January evening in 2017, a needle in the arm and two mouthed words, “I’m sorry,” brought the first execution of 2017, a grim milestone reminding the nation that even as the death penalty declines, Texas continues to carry out the ultimate punishment. Whether Wilkins deserved to die is not a question with much debate, as he killed three people, showed no remorse, and was violent even on death row, but whether the system that condemned him was fair, whether the legal process that led to his execution met the standards of justice, is a question that Judge Elsa Alcala and others continue to wrestle with.
For the families of Willie Freeman, Mike Silva, and Gilbert Vallejo, the only thing that matters is that Christopher Wilkins is gone, he can never hurt anyone again, and justice, such as it is, was served.