Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.

patrick murphy is condemned to die for murder. but he didn’t pull the  trigger.in Texas though it doesn’t matter 

Livingstone ,Texas

patrick murphy  was one of the Texas seven prison escapees, this is a journey to a pretty bleak place maximum  security prison,where there  are men being held, you know that they’re facing asentence of death.

seven  prisoners of the connally unit  near san antonio overpower civilian workers and and a guard  to escape .

on december the 13th  2000 patrick joined six   other men in one of the biggest  jailbreaks in american history.

 already a long -term prisoner this crucial decision sealed his fate.so they were all doing lengthy prison sentences for violent crimes

they overpowe the guards and locked them ina cupboard. they steal clothing  a pickup truck and 16 firearms, two of them dressed as civilians and the other inmates hid in the back of the truck.

all they needed to do now was to drive out of the prison gates.

the all seven ,drove into town where another vehicle was waiting for them and then they were able to switch cars and get away quickly.

and the authorities had no idea of where they’d gone .

after days on the run they became known as the Texas seven.

On christmas Eve the Texas 7 targeted Oshman’sporting goodsstore  in Iriving.

and just a few hundred meteres away officer aubry hawkins was having christmas dinner with  his family.

at 6:26 pm 911 received a report of a disturbance at oshman’s,aubry was onthe scene within  three  minutes.

patrick murphys role was to be the lookout ,his code name was guardian angel, he was listening to the irving  police calls and immediately told them that irving had dispatched a police officer.

murphys position was  in front of the store, 100 yards away  and the incident occurred behind the store in the loading dock area.

this was completely vacant and as the defendants coming out of  the back of the store with   all of their goods,the camping supplies ,the guns  officer hawkins pull in .

and when he drove up  ,george rivas  was acting as security guard and he signaled officer hawkins over and when he got close to him they openened fire.

five different weaponsfired into the vehicle.

he was hit 11 times,several times in the head ,in his bulletproof vest and he was killed instantly by a barrage of gunfire.

they drug his body out the car and drove over him trying to get away ,but they took the time to take his gun.

certanley one of the most violent acts  that could be exacted upon a police officer.

hawkins was shot 11 times , he was also run over.

even amongst those who strongly support the death penalty there are people who do not  think that patrick murphy deserve to die .

he didn’t shoot the gun and he wasn’t major participant of the armed robbery which ended in aubry hawkins death.

But here in Texas that doesn’t matter, as an accomplice, you can stil  be found guilty of murder. and in just 35 days , patrick murphy will be executed.

 a town where at  the heart of a whole place is a death chamber

incarceration is the life blood of the town ,seven prisons 

an execution chamber and a death row themed tourist attraction,employ almost 7000 locals.

the prison graveyard ,a final resting place for executed men.

the headstones will have prison numbers on them and death row inmates always starts with 999.

for most prisoner the wait for their death date is a long one.on average it takes 15 years from the sentencing to the chamber.

for patrick the state  decided after 17 years,his time is now up.

the only alternative to accepting death is to appeal  almost all prisoners choose to fight their sentence.but less  than two percent have been exonerated 

for the last 15 years ,patrick’s lawyers have been fighting against his sentence so far  they’ve launched nine unsuccessful appeals,news has just arrived on the final attempt.

they  still had an opportunity  to get an order that would have meant patrick would not be executed .  the lawyers lost in 10 :15  last night  but  they think that patrick is very clear-eyed and and it will not come as a gut punch to him or a suprise.

patrick has exhausted all his appeals and as the next two days will be his last he’s begun focusing on his dying  moments.

since being on death row, religion has become a huge sourceof strengh to patrick, he’s converted to buddhism and become  close to revshi a buddhist monk who is his  spiritual advisor.

a religious advisor is allowed in the death chamber as the lethal injection takes  effect ,they comfort the inmate by placing one hand on their foot a small gesture that ends the years they’ve been denied  all human contact.

but the state only employs chirstian and muslim advisors.patrick’s buddhist priest is not currently authortized to enter the death chamber.

Patrick’s lawyers have taken his case to the highest tribunal in the nation.the supreme court  in hope  they overrule Texas and allow reverend revshi to be present. 

he field this morning a civil rights lawsuit to say that the execution can happen  only if the prison agrees to provide  mr  murphy with  a spiritual  adviser of his faith, a lot of these cases go down  to the final moments.

now 9 juries  has less then 40 hours wthever to grant  patrick his dying request.

Huntsville  Texas  the execution capital of Unites states, since the death penalty was reintroduced in 1976 the state  hasexecuted 561 people.

patrick murphy is set to be next for his role in the murder of aubry hawkins in 2000.

 Texas  7 behind bars at this hours, the pack had five weeks of freedom as they let authorities throught a nationwide manhunt.

he  will be the fifth member of the gang to die by lethal injection for the crime

patrick’s case raises really troubling questions about when the death penalty should be  applied.

 what’s controversial is that  he didn’t  pull the trigger and that is the reason  why this traditionally pro-execution town is divided  on whether patrick should live or die.

 patrick was born  in dallas ,texas in 1961 .

patrick’s drug addicted mother  abandoned him at nine and he moved in with his father  who  had remarried he,he was in constant trouble as a teenager,being arrested multiple times and often running away from  home .Patrick didn’t  finish school, became a laborer ,at  age 20  he fathered  a child , patrick III

 He didn’t know him growing up. didn’t have any contact with his father  and didn’t know hwo he was or  really anything about him.

the  first time he heard about his father  was when they broke out of prison.

after  murphy  was  caught he desided to meet  his son   for the first  time.

patrick III  didn’t know  what to do , what to react the guard behind him and he sat down int the cubicle and  brought  his   father  in. 

in shackles and chains and set him down .they stared  through the glass  to each other and try  to make small talk.

when 20 minutes was up the phone went dead.

patrick murphys son don’t tell people that  he don’t know, he says its not exactly something to be proud of when  your father is a cop killer.

patrick III think about  officer hawkins,usually around christmas time,he had a son, that kid grew up not  nowinghis father and patrick III can sympathize with that because he didn’t knowhis father.

Patrick III  didn’t see  his father agaun until after he got his execution date.

at 6 pm tomorrow,patrick III will witness the execution as his father’s last request .

patrick III may sound cold -hearted but he just  there to make sure it’s over. he’d been more than  more than honest with him about it ,he think his father should be executed,the way  patrick III was raised, it’s kind of guilt by asssociation.

patrick III meant ” you killed a law enforcement officer  in the state of  Texas and you’r going to be executed and that’s all there is to it”

what patrick III  feel? he’s not  ready  for that  one yet either .he doesn’t know.

patrick is 57  and his last 35 uyrars have been spent behind bars but his life could have been so very different when he broke out of  prison 19  years ago.he was just 15 months from parole for his original crime.

so why did he escap ,when he was so close to having the chanche of leaving prison? a free man.

patrick’s answer was , as  a sex offender,restrictive release is almost  like house arrest.

he was serving  a 50 -year sentence . so what  did he do?

patrick  usually don’t talk too much about  that ,because his very ashamed of the crime  , basically  it boils down to that  ,he broke  into a young lady’s house, he tied her up and raped her.

 there was a knife involved but it wasn’t used on her.it was more of a threatening manner

so basically  he raped her at knife point.

patrick  deeply regret having committted that crime because  he regret hurting  the individual, even though she wasn’t physically hurt , he says  ,it was  an emotional traumatic experience.but  seconds later admitted  that he  physically hurt the lady  by  by raping her.

for patrick time has  almost run out  but what does  patrick regret?

 he said he regret that  crime against the young lady most .that was one of the few things  that he truly do regret .and he’s in  peace with what may happen.

on the question if he´s afraid to die  hi’s anwer was  ” yes”.

One of the lat living members of a pretty  notorious group  of former fugitives is scheduled to be executed, patrick murphy is his name, he was  one of Texas 7.murphy believes that his  life  should be spared.

This evening patrick murphy will be put to death for his part in the murder of a police officer, 19 years ago.

By Texas law the death warrant becomes active at 6 pm.

barring a last- minute stay from the supreme court or the state governor,patrick will die tonight.

patrick son has arrived to witness the execution.he met his father for the fourth and final time this morning.

with just a few hours to go , supporters of  both victim and the prisoner 

gather outside the walls unit.

patrick  is sitting just the other side of this wall in a holding cell,just a few feet away from the death chamber, waiting to find out if the supreme court will  allow him a little bit more life.

patrick’s final 24 hours are recorded.this is something called death watch and happens to every prisoner who faces execution.

not much  special about this , he’s sitting on the bunk for an hour. sitting on the  bunk writing, then he goes   to have a shower, sitting on the  bunk  with headphones.

everything from sleeping ,sitting, reading a book , writing letters, thoser are  all common entries.

at 3: 45  this morning the day of his execution ,he was sitting on the floor cleaning his cupboard .

when they leave the polenski  unite ,they take  all of their property with  them and it’s gathered with them in the kind of chain bags, the same bags that offenders who are released with their property and  only it’s  transported here and its back there  now   all ow that property is back there now .and its claimed by one of his gamily members.

the family of aubry hawkins decided not to come but his fellow officers await  news of the execution.

when that word comes from the attorney general of Texas  and  the governor of Texas that there are no pending  appeals and there is no issuance of clemency or estate from the governor’s office .

then they will proceed with the process which is  essentially letting mr murphy know that its  time and he walks the few feet from thecell that is his holdingc cell to the death chamber itself and the process proceeds from there.

Patrick wikk die by lethal  injection

the main drug used  pentobarbital is a powerful sedative that slows down electrical activity in the brain and nerv cells until it causes  death.it  can take up to an hour to do its job.

outside the death chamber everyone waits on news  from the coroner

it’s now almost two hours since the execution  warrant for patrick murphy became active and everyone here is just waiting around to hearr what’s going to happen

 the state of Texas has  until  midnight to carry out  patrick’s  execution.

the supreme court says the application for a stay of  execution is granted  ,the state may not  carry out murphy’s execution, they cannot kill patrick murphy unless that budhist spiritual advisor is in there with him.

 supreme court  said either  executing tonight with a buddhist priest or not  at all.

 outrage today  about  supreme court decision to block the execution

but once to this day is lifted a dallas county judge here must set a new date which would be a minimum 30 days away .

most  experts  believe this decision will only by murphy a few  more months.

in a way  patrick and his son are also victims of his father’s crime and like  the other victims in this case, tonight should have been a form of closure and now they don’t know when that’s going to happen.

Murphy was scheduled for execution twice, first on March 28, 2019.

The United States Supreme Court granted him a last-minute reprieve on the basis that TDCJ’s denial of his request to have a Buddhist priest in the execution room with him violated the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the United States Constitution. 

Murphy was then given a second execution date, November 13, 2019.

However, his execution was stayed by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas on November 7 to decide whether his religious discrimination lawsuit had merit.