The State of Texas executed Robert Harris on September 20, 2012, for the 2000 murders of former co-workers Rhoda Wheeler and Augustin Villasenor at the Mi-T-Fine Car Wash in Irving (Dallas County) from which he had been fired three days earlier. Three other people were killed in the assault on the car wash.
This was the eighth execution of the year in Texas, out of 29 nationwide; Robert Harris was the fourth inmate convicted in Dallas County to be executed this year.
There currently are eight more executions scheduled to take place in Texas between now and the end of the year. Cleve Foster is scheduled to be executed on September 25, 2012 for the 2002 murder of Nyaneur “Mary” Pal in Fort Worth. This is Foster’s fourth execution date since January 2011. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed his execution three separate times in order to consider questions about the constitutional right to the effective assistance of habeas counsel and related claims of ineffective assistance of counsel and innocence.