'Texas Seven' prison escapee executed for policeman's murder
By Jon Herskovitz AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - A man who was in a group of seven inmates behind one of the biggest prison escapes in Texas history was executed on Wednesday for taking part in the murder of a suburban Dallas police officer on Christmas Eve 2000, a prisons official said. Donald Newbury, 52, was pronounced dead at the state's death chamber in Huntsville at 6:25 p.m. CST after receiving a lethal injection. He was the 521st person executed in Texas since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, the most of any state. "That each new indignity defeats only the body. Pampering the spirit with obscure merit. I love you all, that's it," he was quoted as saying in his last words by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Newbury was part of what was known as the "Texas Seven," a group that overpowered 14 prison employees, tied them up and then broke out of the Connally Unit, about 60 miles southeast of San Antonio. Group members then went on a crime spree for the next several weeks that included the armed robbery of a sporting goods store in the Dallas suburb of Irving. Irving Police Officer Aubrey Hawkins, who had just finished a Christmas Eve dinner with his family, pulled up to the store in response to a call of suspicious activity. He was shot in his vehicle, pulled out of the car and shot again repeatedly, dying on the pavement, court papers said. The group then fled to Colorado, where its members were eventually apprehended. One member of the group committed suicide rather than be captured. The remaining six members were sentenced to death for Aubrey's murder. Two had already been executed before Newbury. Lawyers for Newbury were seeking a stay, saying his trial counsel did not do a proper job defending him. But the U.S. Supreme Court denied the request about an hour before the planned execution, without offering an explanation. "Newbury confessed to his role in the escape and robbery and blamed poor police training for Officer Hawkins's murder," the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in 2014 when considering a request for a stay. Newbury had been serving a 99-year sentence for armed robbery at the time of his escape, the Texas Attorney General's Office said. Since being on death row, Newberry has been involved in 55 disciplinary incidents, prison officials said. (Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Peter Cooney, Eric Beech and Sandra Maler)
