TEXAS LAST MEAL--REGINALD PERKINS--01/22/09

TEXAS LAST MEAL
REGINALD PERKINS
Jan. 22, 2009

...Perkins pleaded guilty to the 1980 rape and attempted rape of two 12-year-old girls in Ohio and was sentenced to life in prison...In 1988, he was paroled...

Last Meal: Perkins had a final meal request of twenty four hot bbq chicken wings, two cheeseburgers with everything, four slices of pizza with jalapenos, three slices of buttered toast, one sweet potato pie, sherbert rainbow ice cream and twelve Dr. Pepper/Big Red.

The skinny: Perkins, a convicted rapist and suspected serial killer was executed for strangling and robbing his stepmother in Fort Worth more than eight years ago.

More skinny: Perkins was condemned for the 2000 slaying of his 64-year-old stepmother, whose body was found stuffed in the trunk of her Cadillac. He led his father and police to his stepmother's body.

Evidence at his trial showed Perkins pawned her wedding ring and wrote fraudulent checks from the account of the family trucking business in Fort Worth. He became a suspect after detectives learned of his previous convictions in Ohio.

Priors and priors and priors: Perkins pleaded guilty to the 1980 rape and attempted rape of two 12-year-old girls in Ohio and was sentenced to life in prison.

Authorities suspected but couldn't get enough evidence to charge him with the 1980 strangling of a Cleveland woman. Perkins was living with the victim's twin sister and later married her.

He was suspected of the 1981 strangling of another Cleveland woman in her apartment, and the strangling three weeks later of a man, whose daughter he was convicted of trying to rape.

In 1988, he was paroled and moved to Fort Worth.

A parole violation returned him to Ohio in 1993 and remained in prison until 2000, when he was paroled again and returned again to Fort Worth. His stepmother's slaying occurred 10 months later.

A DNA database tied Perkins last year to a pair of 1991 stranglings in Fort Worth.

Leading up to: About an hour before he was executed, Perkins had summoned a prison official to his cell and gave him a statement professing his innocence.

"They didn't link me to nothing. I did not kill my stepmom," he said. "I loved her. Texas is going to kill an innocent man."

On the other deaths, Perkins said, "There's other suspects they questioned besides me. They let them go. I don't know what they're talking about. I can't tell you who killed them. I ain't killed nobody. I've never killed."

Last words and such: Asked by the warden if he would like to make a statement, Perkins responded, "I already made my statement. Appreciate it. Love y'all."

As the drugs were being administered, he said, "I can feel it going in." Just before the drugs took effect, he looked at the sister of his victim and told her he loved her.

He was pronounced dead at 6:24 p.m., eight minutes after the lethal drugs began to flow.

"I think he waited a little bit too late to tell me that he loved me," the victim's sister, said. She also said if Perkins insisted he was innocent, "He should have told who did it."

Factoids: Perkins was the...

5th murderer executed in U.S. in 2009
1141st murderer executed in U.S. since 1976
3rd murderer executed in Texas in 2009
426th murderer executed in Texas since 1976