Jedidiah Isaac Murphy, 48, was executed by lethal injection on 10
October 2023 in Huntsville, Texas for the abduction, murder, and
robbery of an 80-year-old woman.

On Wednesday, 4 October 2000, at a shopping mall in Plano, Murphy,
then 25, forced Bertie Cunningham at gunpoint into giving him a ride
in her car. At some point, he forced her into the trunk of her car and
shot her in the head. He then drove her car around and used her ATM
card and credit cards to buy liquor and beer, among other things. He
later picked up his niece and two of her male school-age friends.
After dropping off his niece, he and the boys continued driving
around. He ultimately bought both of them motorized scooters before
taking them home. He subsequently removed Cunningham's body from the
trunk and dumped it in a creek.

Murphy was arrested two days later. He admitted to the shooting and
led police to the location of Cunningham's body. He wrote and signed a
statement claiming that he accidentally shot her while forcing her
into her trunk.

Murphy had convictions going back to 1994 for burglary of a
habitation, burglary of a vehicle, possession of marijuana, and
driving without a license. He was convicted and sentenced to 10 years
in prison, but was put on "shock probation" and released. Witnesses at
his punishment hearing testified to other crimes he committed. Three
women testified that he threatened or assaulted them with deadly
weapons. Sherryl Wilhelm testified that Murphy carjacked and abducted
her in 1997 and that she escaped by jumping out of her car on the
highway. Police were unable to find the suspect, but she recognized
him on television as a suspect in Cunningham's murder and subsequently
identified him in a photo lineup.

A jury found Murphy guilty in June 2001 and sentenced him to death.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and
sentence in June 2003.

In Murphy's appeals, his defense challenged the admissibility of his
signed statement, claiming that he gave it involuntarily. The
reliability of Wilhelm's testimony that he carjacked her three years
earlier was also a significant part of the appeals. The defense
presented an alibi for Murphy that it claimed would exculpate him from
being Wilhelm's attacker, but the courts were not convinced that it
did. Another claim raised by the defense was that the prosecution
erred in presenting computer-generated reports that were made using
systems developed by prominent psychologists as though the reports
were authored by the psychologists themselves.

On Death Row, Murphy expressed remorse for killing Cunningham. "I wake
up to my crime daily and I've never gone a day without sincere remorse
for the hurt I've caused," he wrote to the leader of a Jewish
anti-death-penalty group. He denied involvement in the attack on
Wilhelm.

Two days before his execution, Murphy's lawyers filed an appeal
claiming that a fire that occurred in the administration building of
the Huntsville Unit damaged the lethal injection chemical by
subjecting it to extreme heat, creating "substantial risks of serious,
severe, and superadded harm and pain." A response filed by the
attorney general's office said that the drug, pentobarbital, was
lab-tested and found to be "potent and sterile." The appeal was
denied.

On the day of his execution, Murphy's lawyers filed a request for a
stay based on the state's denial of his request to perform DNA testing
on evidence from Wilhelm's case - another issue that had been
adjudicated in earlier appeals in state courts, but which the defense
had never taken to the federal courts. A federal district judge issued
a stay because there was a similar case pending in the U.S. Fifth
Circuit Court of Appeals. The court ruled that a stay was appropriate
until a decision was rendered in the related case. The Fifth Circuit
agreed.

Most Texas executions begin at 6 p.m. sharp, but those that involve
late appeals to the Supreme Court are sometimes delayed by an hour or
two. Usually, the last-minute appeals are from prisoners seeking to
have a stay issued by any court with jurisdiction to do so. In
Murphy's case, the stay had already been issued, but the state was
seeking to have it overturned. For most of the day Tuesday, then,
Murphy was technically under a stay, but he knew that the execution
could be back on track if that stay were overturned before midnight.
The Supreme Court issued its order lifting the stay around 9 p.m. It
had already denied the appeal related to the damaged drugs claim.

Murphy, who was Jewish, was accompanied in the execution chamber by
his spiritual advisor, a Christian pastor. His friend, Vivian Schwarz,
watched from one viewing room, while Wayne Martin, a family friend of
Cunningham's, watched from the other.

Murphy began his last statement by saying, "To the family of the
victim, I sincerely apologize for all of it." He then recited Psalm
34, which ends with, "The Lord redeems the soul of His servants, and
none of those who trust in Him shall be condemned." After telling the
warden he was ready, he turned his head toward a friend watching from
a viewing room, telling her, "God bless all of y'all. It's OK. Tell my
babies I love them." He then shouted, "Bella is my wife!"

The lethal injection was then started. A reporter who witnessed
Murphy's death wrote that he "took two barely audible breaths and
appeared to go to sleep." No indication was given that he experienced
any pain. He was pronounced dead at 10:15 p.m.

David Carson
(Sources: Texas Department of Criminal Justice, court documents,
Associated Press, Huntsville Item.)
--
Texas Execution Information
www.txexecutions.org