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death penalty news—-TEXAS

Oct. 30

TEXAS—-new death sentence

Irving father gets death for killing his 2 children

Execution has been ordered for an Irving man convicted in the 2007
shooting deaths of his two children.

Police say 29-year-old Hector Medina also shot himself during the attack
just weeks after the children's mother left him.

The victims were Medina's 3-year-old son, Javier, and his 8-month-old
daughter, Diana.

The children's mother wasn't home during the March 2007 shootings.

Medina in September was convicted of capital murder. A jury in Dallas
sentenced him this week.

(source: Associated Press)

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Man set to die today for '97 killing in DeSoto

She saw him on a street corner with a sign: "Work for food."

So she took him in.

She prepared sandwiches for him and his friend at her DeSoto home.

Then she was stabbed to death.

Donna Duncan Vick was always a charitable woman, her family said, but she
also believed in an eye for an eye, a life for a life. Today, one of the
men who authorities say killed her is scheduled to receive his half of
that equation.

Gregory Wright, a 42-year-old former homeless man, is to be executed for
the March 21, 1997, slaying of Ms. Vick, a religious 52-year-old widow who
gave Mr. Wright and his friend John Adams food and a place to sleep.

"Unfortunately, I think at this point Greg is nearing the end of his legal
challenges," one of his attorneys, Meg Penrose, said Wednesday.

Appeals asserting evidence of Mr. Wright's innocence were turned down
Tuesday by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

Mr. Wright insists that he wasn't involved in Ms. Vick's slaying and that
Mr. Adams, also on death row, was solely responsible.

"He blamed everything on me," Mr. Wright said recently from a visiting
cage outside Texas death row. "I'm very upset. It's a nightmare."

Mr. Adams later recanted his testimony and claimed responsibility for the
killing. But at a hearing recently, he renounced that statement.

In explanation, Mr. Adams said he originally recanted to help his
co-defendant with his appeals, Ms. Penrose said. "He said he was trying to
be gracious and give Mr. Wright more time with his wife."

Mr. Wright, who says he was a trucker before he became homeless, met and
married his wife, Connie Wright, while on death row. She and other
supporters say he is innocent.

Mr. Adams, who also was homeless, testified during trial that Mr. Wright
introduced him to Ms. Vick on the night of the murder. After spending some
time at a club, he and Mr. Wright got a ride to Ms. Vick's home.

Ms. Vick made them both sandwiches, Mr. Adams testified. Before retiring
to her bedroom, Ms. Vick told him to make himself at home and help himself
to the refrigerator, the bathroom and a spare bedroom.

Then someone stabbed her to death in her bed. Each defendant said the
other did it.

A witness told jurors that soon after the murder, Mr. Wright and Mr. Adams
traded Ms. Vick's television, VCR, microwave and other possessions with
him in exchange for crack.

(source: Dallas Morning News)