TEXAS LAST MEAL
DONELL OKEITH JACKSON
November 1, 2006

...That $200 meant the difference between life and death...

Last Meal: Jackson had a final meal request of two double-meat bacon burgers, bbq ribs, freedom fries, onion rings, root beer soda, banana split ice cream and peach cobbler.

The skinny: Jackson, 33, was executed for the $200 contract killing of a witness in an assault case.

More skinny: Jackson, who was then 20, and his friend, David Smith, drove to the house where the victim and his father lived. After entering the house and speaking to both men. Jackson asked if the victim would go outside with him because he had something else that he wanted to tell him. Once outside, Jackson pulled a gun from his waist that Smith had given to him and shot the man once in the head. A neighbor saw the victim and Jackson seconds before the shooting and later identified him from a lineup. Smith quickly became a suspect because the dead man was scheduled to testify against him in an upcoming aggravated assault trial. Smith eventually admitted that he was with Jackson, but he did not know Jackson was going to shoot Stubblefield. Once Jackson heard this, Jackson admitted that Smith had paid him $200 to shoot the man.

David Smith later was convicted of paying Jackson the $200 to shoot the victim and was sentenced to life in prison.

That $200 meant the difference between life and death. In Texas, murder warrants the death penalty only in specific situations, including murder during a robbery or a rape, murder of a child or, in this case, murder for money. Of the 377 men and women executed in Texas since 1982, Jackson was just the 15th to die in such a case.

Jackson's confessed fee is one of the smallest amounts ever offered in a murder-for-hire case resulting in the death penalty in Texas.

Last words and such: From the death gurney, Jackson acknowledged killing the man before he could testify. "The calmness I was telling you about, I still have it. I love you all. I just want you to know that. I’m all right. Make sure momma knows. All right? “Jermaine, I love you, too, man. You are Mario’s uncle? Correct? I just want you to know that I wronged your family. I received nothing, I was not paid. I took his life for the love of a friend.”

Factoids: Jackson was the...

50th murderer executed in U.S. in 2006
1054th murderer executed in U.S. since 1976
23rd murderer executed in Texas in 2006
378th murderer executed in Texas since 1976