By Claire Z. Cardona
The Dallas Morning News
HOUSTON — A member of the Texas Seven, the group of inmates who killed an Irving police officer in 2000 after they had escaped from a South Texas prison, now has an execution date.
Joseph Garcia, 46, is scheduled to be put to death Aug. 30, the Houston Chronicle reported.
Before their escape Garcia was serving a 50-year sentence for stabbing Miguel Luna to death in San Antonio after the two got lost on the way home and had an argument.
On Dec. 13, 2000, Garcia, who was 29 at the time, and and six other inmates broke out of the Connally Unit.
The group — made up of robbers, murderers, rapists and a child abuser — overpowered workers at the prison in Kenedy, about 60 miles south of San Antonio. They stole the workers’ clothes and guns from the armory and drove away in a prison truck.
On Christmas Eve, the convicts, dressed as security guards, robbed a sporting goods store in Irving. As they were leaving, Officer Aubrey Hawkins confronted them.
They shot the 29-year-old husband and father multiple times before pulling him from his patrol vehicle and running him over.
They fled in the stolen car and were tracked about a month later to an RV park in Woodland Park, Colo., where they were living and posing as a religious group.
Toby Shook, who prosecuted the escapees, told the Chronicle it is “satisfying” that Garcia’s actual sentence will be carried out after more than 17 years.
“He was one of the more violent ones during the prison breakout,” Shook said. “The hostages described him as one of the more violent ones, who made threats and went out of his way to frighten them.”
Garcia will be the fourth member of the Texas Seven to be executed.
One of the seven, Larry Harper, killed himself before he could be captured. The other six were taken into custody and put on death row.
Michael Rodriguez was executed by lethal injection in August 2008, George Rivas, the leader of the escapees, in 2012, and Donald Newbury in 2015.
Patrick Murphy, who was initially sentence for aggravated sexual assault in Dallas County, and Randy Halprin, who was in prison for injury to a child in Tarrant County, remain on death row.
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