An Honest Death Row Inmate
The anti-DP crowd must really be upset at this guy, who has a refreshingly honest approach to his trial:
Wilkins gets death sentence in 3 murders
BY MELODY MCDONALD
MJMCDONALD@STAR-TELEGRAM.COM
FORT WORTH -- It was some of the most jaw-dropping testimony ever heard in a Tarrant County courtroom.
Christopher Chubasco Wilkins took the witness stand as his capital murder trial drew to a close on Tuesday, admitted to killing three men and to a string of other crimes, and then told the jury he didn't care if he lived or died.
Whatever the jury chose -- life in prison without parole or the death penalty -- would be fine with him, he said.
"I am as undecided as you are," Wilkins told the jurors. "You've got a job to do. You tell the judge 'Get a rope' or not. ...
"Look, it is no big deal. It is no big deal."
It didn't take long for jurors to decide. The five women and seven men deliberated about 1 1/2 hours before deciding that Wilkins, 39, should die for his crimes. Several were crying when state District Judge Everett Young announced their verdict.
"It is OK. It is OK," Wilkins mouthed to the jury.
Last week, the jury convicted Wilkins of capital murder for fatally shooting Willie Freeman and Mike Silva on Oct. 27, 2005. A day earlier, according to prosecutors and to Wilkins himself, he killed Gilbert Vallejo outside a south-side bar during a dispute about the pay phone.
"I make bad decisions," Wilkins explained. "I know they are bad decisions. I make them anyway."
Wilkins told the jury that he disapproved of many things that occurred during his trial. First, he said, he wanted to plead guilty to everything and just go straight to the penalty phase, but his attorneys, Wes Ball and J. Warren St. John, wanted to "bill up a whole bunch of hours," he joked.
Second, he said, he did not want his family to testify on his behalf -- something that his attorneys arranged because they wanted the jury to hear what Wilkins was like when he was a child and young man.
"They sprung that charade on me, just like they did you," Wilkins said, referring to Friday's testimony in which his family members begged the jury to spare his life. "I'm more than a little upset about that."
Wilkins then thanked prosecutor Kevin Rousseau, who is working with Tiffany Burks, for not cross-examining his family members.
"I don't think I could have taken that," Wilkins said. "I know the gloves have to come off. You have a job to do. You're doing a fine job."
Wilkins told jurors that he was "not there to make excuses." He is not mentally ill nor were his heinous crimes caused by his extensive drug use, he said.
"You can consider drugs if you want to," Wilkins said. "But I wouldn't put too much weight on that. When I get wound up, I have a fuse that is short. I don't think about what I am doing. I don't care."
...
Wilkins then detailed for jurors how he killed Freeman out of revenge because he ripped him off in a dope deal and laughed at him, and how he killed Silva, Freeman's friend, because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He killed Vallejo, he said, because he made him mad.
Wilkins acknowledged that he also nearly killed two more people about a week later when he intentionally ran them down on a sidewalk in a stolen car because he believed one of them had stolen his sunglasses.
...
Wilkins said he is not a Satanist, a racist or a gang member. He said he is an independent "separatist" and prefers to mingle with his own race but does not hate anyone.
When asked by defense attorney Ball whether he wanted to die, Wilkins paused.
"I guess, subconsciously, I've been trying to get myself killed since I was 12 or 13 years old," Wilkins said. "I don't have nothing to live for. I haven't been any good to anybody for the last 20 years and I won't be for the next 20 or the 20 after that."
Later, prosecutor Rousseau questioned Wilkins about his dark side.
"Ever since you have been old enough to sniff the dark side you have pursued it. You became a bad man and remained a bad man," Rousseau said.
"Yes, sir," Wilkins replied.
"You're not going to change now are you?"
"I believe it's a little late," Wilkins replied.
Rest of story.And all the above, not because he committed any crime, but because of the conditions in the jailhouse and nature of the criminal proceedings. The state did it to him. Moreover, if the state didn't do it to him post-arrest, it failed in taking care of him before the crimes.
But let's wish he continues as a volunteer and his lawyers don't unneccessarily protract the post-conviction proceedings.
JAS
He said it himself, he will never be any good. He is mean. He won't be good for the next twenty years, or for the twenty years after that. If he ever got out, he would kill again. He may kill in prison.
The fact that he is in a place that is as close as you can get to hell on earth should be a comfort to all of us.
June 13, 2010, 18:09
GretchenSome lawyer is still probably going to have this guy mentally examined.
web pagePOUND, Va. (AP) � For seven days, Robert Gleason Jr. begged correctional officers and counselors at Wallens Ridge State Prison to move his new cellmate. The constant singing, screaming and obnoxious behavior were too much, and Gleason knew he was ready to snap.
On the eighth day � May 8, 2009 � correctional officers found 63-year-old Harvey Gray Watson Jr. bound, gagged, beaten and strangled. His death went unnoticed for 15 hours because correctional officers had not followed proper procedure for inmate head counts at the high-security prison in southwestern Virginia.
Now, Gleason says he'll kill again if he isn't put to death for killing Watson, who had a history of mental illness. And he says his next victim won't be an inmate.
"I murdered that man cold-bloodedly. I planned it, and I'm gonna do it again," the 40-year-old Gleason told The Associated Press. "Someone needs to stop it. The only way to stop me is put me on death row."
Gleason already is serving a life sentence for killing another man. He fired his lawyers last month � they were trying to work out a deal to keep him from getting the death penalty � so he could plead guilty to capital murder. He's vowed not to appeal his sentence if the judge sentences him to death Aug. 31.
"I did this. I deserve it," he said. "That man, he didn't deserve to die."
July 04, 2010, 04:28
michelleiscoolChris has never tried to deny what he has done. He is going to pay the ultimate price. Who can ask more of him? I have found in him a man of above average intelligence and it breaks my heart that he did not choose another path in life. But he is a product of his environment. He acts like a monster because he is treated as such. But there is a deep spirit within the killer, if only someone took the time to look for it. I took the time and I found exactly what I knew was there.
July 05, 2010, 16:30
R.CallahanThe is being adapted into a movie: Liar, Liar 2. It's the heart warming (& chair warming) tale of what happens when a serial killer's estranged son wishes that for one day his father wouldn't be able to tell a lie. Laughter ensues when the defendant's attorney finds it impossible to keep his client off of the stand. You'll snicker, you'll cry, you'll sit in awkward silence grinding your teeth.
July 06, 2010, 08:58
A.P. MerillatWilkins is such the gentleman that on December 11, 2009, after he stabbed a death row guard below the eye with a dart from a homemade blowgun, he told investigators that "...(the victim officer)was not a bad guy." He said that he was not "mad at him" but since Officer Sirmons was on the cell shakedown team he "fell under the law of parties, so he got the dart." He also said that he (Wilkins) is a "G... D... killer; I'm going to kill somebody before I'm executed - guard, nurse, I don't care who."
July 07, 2010, 10:04
Shannon EdmondsScotland ... Scotland ... isn't that the country that just set the Lockerbie bomber free on "humanitarian" grounds because he was about to die of cancer?
For the Lockerbie bomber, death takes a holiday If there was any lingering doubt that Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi's release last year was a grave injustice, the admission that the mass killer could live another 10 years has settled the matter.
Oops.I weep for the shriveled-up, emasculated, nanny-statist residue of the land of my forebearers.
Posted by michelleiscool:
"I thought the story about the blowdart was pretty hilarious!"
So that answers the question, "What kind of woman is a pen pal with a death row inmate?" Now we know. Someone who thinks a prison guard getting a blowdart in the face is hilarious.
quote:
Originally posted by jane starnes:
Posted by michelleiscool:
"I thought the story about the blowdart was pretty hilarious!"
So that answers the question, "What kind of woman is a pen pal with a death row inmate?" Now we know. Someone who thinks a prison guard getting a blowdart in the face is hilarious.
Jane shoots and scores.
Ask me sometime about the scandinavian school teacher who became a pen pal and befriended the man who killed my friend, former Fort Bend prosecutor Gil Epstein, and of the letters she sent the Epstein family. She visited him several times. I think there's a place in hell alongside Wilkins for folks who terrorize the families of the victims.
July 08, 2010, 14:25
Scott BrumleyAs is so often true in our bizarre cyberculture, the name of the game isn't reasoned, or even sentimental, persuasion. Rather, the name of the game is outrageous provocation, particularly where the provacateur can be assured of some apparently-desired swift and emotional response, but also can hide behind the cloak of a pseudonym. That's just how some folks roll (who was it that said that in justifying allegiance to a murderer, and how did that turn out for her?).
July 10, 2010, 16:31
michelleiscoolThe reason that I think the blowdart story is hilarious is because Chris will sit in his cell, minding his own business when a guard will come along and for whatever reason hisses, "Pussy" to Chris. Well, that is a red rag to a bull!! And so he retaliates. If you don't want stabbed or blown up or "blowdarted" by Chris then just leave him the hell alone. Chris only hurts those who hurt him. Stop hurting him and he will stop hurting you. Imao!!!!