This undated photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows Erick Davila. Attorneys for the Texas death row inmate want the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his scheduled execution this week for the shooting deaths of a 5-year-old girl and her grandmother during a birthday party 10 years ago outside a Fort Worth apartment. The former Fort Worth street gang member is set for lethal injection Wednesday, April 25, 2018. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP)
Republished April 25, 2018 - 4:44 PM
Original Publication Date April 25, 2018 - 4:01 PM
HUNTSVILLE, Texas - The Latest on the execution of Erick Davila in Texas (all times local):
6:40 p.m.
Texas has executed a 31-year-old prisoner condemned for killing a 5-year-old girl and her grandmother in a gang-related shooting at a child's birthday party in Fort Worth a decade ago.
Erick Davila received lethal injection Wednesday evening for using a semi-automatic rifle to spray bullets at about 20 people — more than a dozen of them children. Annette Stevenson, a 48-year-old grandmother, and her granddaughter, Queshawn Stevenson, were killed in the April 2008 attack. Four others were wounded, including the girl who was celebrating her 9th birthday.
Authorities said the gunfire was in apparent retaliation against the slain child's father, who had a previous run-in with Davila.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused appeals to block the punishment.
Davila's execution is the ninth this year nationally, the fifth in Texas.
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5:45 p.m.
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to stop the scheduled execution of a Texas prisoner condemned for killing a 5-year-old girl and her grandmother in a gang-related shooting at a child's birthday party in Fort Worth.
The high court, without comment, rejected appeals from 31-year-old Erick Davila about 15 minutes before he was scheduled for lethal injection Wednesday evening.
Davila was sentenced to death for using a laser-sighted semi-automatic rifle to spray bullets at about 20 people — more than a dozen of them children — and killing 48-year-old Annette Stevenson and her granddaughter, Queshawn Stevenson.
The attack was in apparent retaliation for a previous run-in involving Davila and the father of the slain child. Four other people were wounded in the 2008 shooting.
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11:30 p.m.
Attorneys for a condemned Texas prisoner are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his scheduled execution for killing a young girl and her grandmother in a gang-related shooting a decade ago that turned a child's birthday party in Fort Worth into a bloodbath.
Erick Davila faces lethal injection Wednesday evening for using a laser-sighted semi-automatic rifle to spray bullets at the gathering of about 20 people — more than a dozen of them children — outside an apartment. Authorities said the 2008 attack was apparently retaliation for a previous run-in with one of the adults attending the party for a 9-year-old girl.
Forty-eight-year-old Annette Stevenson and her 5-year-old granddaughter, Queshawn Stevenson, were killed. Four others were wounded.
The 31-year-old Davila would be the fifth Texas inmate executed this year.
News from © The Associated Press, 2018