A San Antonio street gangster who gunned down 3 people in the holdup of a Korean restaurant more than 6 years ago was executed Thursday evening.
Kevin Watts told friends he was thankful for their love and support. "For everybody incarcerated, y'all keep your heads up," he said. He told them to "stay strong and keep fighting."
"I'm out of here, man. I'm gone. Keep me in your hearts," he said.
As the lethal drugs began flowing, Watts said, "Can I say something? I'm dying but." At that point, he began snoring and stopped breathing a moment later. At 6:17 p.m. CDT, he was pronounced dead.
No friends or relatives of any of the victims attended the execution.
Watts, 27, confessed to the execution-style shootings where the newlywed wife of one of the victims also was abducted and raped. Earlier this year, returning to the Bexar County court where a jury convicted him of capital murder and decided he should die, Watts angrily confronted the judge scheduling his execution with an obscenity-laced tirade complaining about
a racist justice system. The judge twice had to order him removed from the courtroom.
Watts' appeals had exhausted his appeals. Without the help of his lawyer, John Economidy, he filed a clemency request with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles that was rejected. Also without his lawyer's knowledge, he filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court contending mental retardation should make him ineligible for execution, but Economidy said there was no evidence to support the claim and the court was returning the motion without even considering it.
Watts walked into the Sam Won Gardens restaurant the morning of March 1, 2002, after a night of drinking and drugs and demanded money. He ordered manager Hak Po Kim, 30, and cooks Yan Tzu Banks, 52, and Chae Sun Shook, 59, to kneel on the kitchen floor and face a wall. Then he shot each of them in the head.
He forced Kim's wife of 2 months to retrieve the wallet and keys from her dying husband, grabbed about $100 from a cash register, then drove off with her in Kim's SUV.
The truck was spotted at a nearby apartment complex parking lot and police arrested Watts about 3 hours after the shootings. He had tried to flee from officers with Kim's wife by ramming the truck into 2 patrol cars.
"He was caught with a victim by the police as he's trying to escape and he had the murder weapon literally tied around his neck," Bill Pennington, the Bexar County assistant district attorney who prosecuted Watts, said.
The abducted woman identified him during the guilt-innocence portion of his trial as the gunman at the family's restaurant. Then at the punishment phase of the trial, she testified how she was forced at gunpoint to perform sex acts.
"My intent was to put food on the table, get some money, go home and live happily ever after," Watts, in a death row interview last week, said of the robbery. "The situation gets out of control and one thing leads to another. When I woke up in the county jail, I said to myself: 'I ain't getting out.' "
Watts was from San Jose, Calif. He said when he was about 14 his mother tried to get him away from gangs there and moved him to San Antonio to live with an aunt.
"I came to Texas and I guess you could say I picked up where I left off with the gangs," he said.
Watts' record included misdemeanor convictions for evading arrest, criminal mischief, trespassing, marijuana possession and driving while intoxicated. He also had a weapons case against him as a 16-year-old.
He dropped out of San Antonio's Theodore Roosevelt High School in the 9th grade.
"School was boring," he said. "The teacher wasn't into it. I'm not into it. I got money on my mind. I want to get high, smoke some weed, make some money, be with the homies."
"So I became a full-time participant in the street life."
At the time of the shootings, he had an infant daughter. The night before the slayings, witnesses said he'd been drinking "thug passion," a champagne and cognac drink made famous by slain gangster rap singer Tupac Shakur, snorting cocaine and taking numerous pills.
Watts becomes the 11th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 416th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982. Watts becomes the 177th inmate in the state to be executed since Rick Perry became governor in 2001.
4 more executions are scheduled in Texas before the end of the month, and 6 more are set for November. On Tuesday, Joseph Ries, 29, is the 1st of 2 prisoners set to die ext week. He was convicted of breaking into a rural home in Hopkins County in northeast Texas and fatally shooting and taking the car of Robert Ratliff, 64, who was asleep.
Watts becomes the 27th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1126th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.
Sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin
Kevin Watts told friends he was thankful for their love and support. "For everybody incarcerated, y'all keep your heads up," he said. He told them to "stay strong and keep fighting."
"I'm out of here, man. I'm gone. Keep me in your hearts," he said.
As the lethal drugs began flowing, Watts said, "Can I say something? I'm dying but." At that point, he began snoring and stopped breathing a moment later. At 6:17 p.m. CDT, he was pronounced dead.
No friends or relatives of any of the victims attended the execution.
Watts, 27, confessed to the execution-style shootings where the newlywed wife of one of the victims also was abducted and raped. Earlier this year, returning to the Bexar County court where a jury convicted him of capital murder and decided he should die, Watts angrily confronted the judge scheduling his execution with an obscenity-laced tirade complaining about
a racist justice system. The judge twice had to order him removed from the courtroom.
Watts' appeals had exhausted his appeals. Without the help of his lawyer, John Economidy, he filed a clemency request with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles that was rejected. Also without his lawyer's knowledge, he filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court contending mental retardation should make him ineligible for execution, but Economidy said there was no evidence to support the claim and the court was returning the motion without even considering it.
Watts walked into the Sam Won Gardens restaurant the morning of March 1, 2002, after a night of drinking and drugs and demanded money. He ordered manager Hak Po Kim, 30, and cooks Yan Tzu Banks, 52, and Chae Sun Shook, 59, to kneel on the kitchen floor and face a wall. Then he shot each of them in the head.
He forced Kim's wife of 2 months to retrieve the wallet and keys from her dying husband, grabbed about $100 from a cash register, then drove off with her in Kim's SUV.
The truck was spotted at a nearby apartment complex parking lot and police arrested Watts about 3 hours after the shootings. He had tried to flee from officers with Kim's wife by ramming the truck into 2 patrol cars.
"He was caught with a victim by the police as he's trying to escape and he had the murder weapon literally tied around his neck," Bill Pennington, the Bexar County assistant district attorney who prosecuted Watts, said.
The abducted woman identified him during the guilt-innocence portion of his trial as the gunman at the family's restaurant. Then at the punishment phase of the trial, she testified how she was forced at gunpoint to perform sex acts.
"My intent was to put food on the table, get some money, go home and live happily ever after," Watts, in a death row interview last week, said of the robbery. "The situation gets out of control and one thing leads to another. When I woke up in the county jail, I said to myself: 'I ain't getting out.' "
Watts was from San Jose, Calif. He said when he was about 14 his mother tried to get him away from gangs there and moved him to San Antonio to live with an aunt.
"I came to Texas and I guess you could say I picked up where I left off with the gangs," he said.
Watts' record included misdemeanor convictions for evading arrest, criminal mischief, trespassing, marijuana possession and driving while intoxicated. He also had a weapons case against him as a 16-year-old.
He dropped out of San Antonio's Theodore Roosevelt High School in the 9th grade.
"School was boring," he said. "The teacher wasn't into it. I'm not into it. I got money on my mind. I want to get high, smoke some weed, make some money, be with the homies."
"So I became a full-time participant in the street life."
At the time of the shootings, he had an infant daughter. The night before the slayings, witnesses said he'd been drinking "thug passion," a champagne and cognac drink made famous by slain gangster rap singer Tupac Shakur, snorting cocaine and taking numerous pills.
Watts becomes the 11th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas and the 416th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982. Watts becomes the 177th inmate in the state to be executed since Rick Perry became governor in 2001.
4 more executions are scheduled in Texas before the end of the month, and 6 more are set for November. On Tuesday, Joseph Ries, 29, is the 1st of 2 prisoners set to die ext week. He was convicted of breaking into a rural home in Hopkins County in northeast Texas and fatally shooting and taking the car of Robert Ratliff, 64, who was asleep.
Watts becomes the 27th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1126th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.
Sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin
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