2006-07-20
"Killer of 5-year-old in Texas executed," by Michael Graczyk. (Associated Press July 20, 2006, 7:03PM)
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A child sex offender apologized in a voice choking with emotion before he was executed Thursday for abducting and killing a 5-year-old girl in Amarillo 14 years ago. "I am sorry for the pain I have caused you," Robert Anderson told the grandmother of his victim. "I have regretted this for a long time. I am sorry." "Anderson also apologized to his family. As the lethal drugs began taking effect, Anderson muttered a prayer. Eight minutes later at 6:19 p.m., he was pronounced dead.
Anderson, 40, had acknowledged the horrific slaying of Audra Reeves and asked that no new appeals be filed to try to block his execution, the 16th this year in Texas and the second in as many days.
According to court records and Anderson's confession, he forced the girl to accompany him into the house and tried to rape her, then choked her and beat her with a footstool. When he discovered she still was alive, he drowned her in a bathtub. He stuffed her body into a large foam cooler, pushed the cooler along the street in a grocery cart and dumped it in a trash bin.
Anderson had a history of sexual offenses involving children that dated to his teen years in Tulsa, Okla., and said he'd been in and out of centers to deal with his obsession with young girls.
"Grandma hopes to find closure," by Michael Smith. (Web-posted Thursday, July 20, 2006)
Every time Grace Lawson sees a little girl with blonde hair, images of her granddaughter, Audra Reeves, come to her mind. The images usually are of Audra doing one of her favorite things - picking flowers - and giving them to the ones she loved, like Lawson and her father, Clarence Reeves Jr. "She'd bring them to me and her dad and say, 'Aren't they pretty? Aren't they pretty?'" Lawson said Tuesday from her home in Brownwood. "She was just happy always had a little smile, she was just a beautiful little girl."
Thoughts of the last time Lawson saw Audra, however, bring on darker feelings. "I felt guilty because they had come through here and she wanted to stay with me, and I said, 'No, you go on and visit with daddy,'" Lawson said. "And she was up there exactly one week" when she was brutally killed. Audra's life ended after she bore the callous brunt of Robert James Anderson's brutal, savage fury in June 1992. Anderson admitted to ravaging the 5-year-old girl in his Amarillo home. He abducted her as she walked home from a San Jacinto park. He sexually assaulted her, beat her with a pipe, a stool and his hand, stabbed her with a paring knife and a barbecue fork despite the little girl's pleas for mercy and then drowned her. Anderson was convicted and sentenced to death for Audra's murder and is scheduled to face lethal injection as punishment at 6 p.m. today in Huntsville. Lawson said she will drive to Huntsville this morning to watch Anderson get his due and hopefully begin to close the trying 14-year wait for justice to be served. "I'm not a violent person at all, but I am looking forward to this closure knowing that he is going to die for what he did," she said. The family has had to endure the trial - during and after which Lawson said she "couldn't eat or sleep for a while because of it" - and years of state and federal court appeals, which always jolted them back to the gruesome details of Audra's death.
Lawson said she always had the nagging worry that as long as Anderson was alive, other children were in danger. "We had him, but there was still the possibility that he could escape or what have you, and if he did this to another child it would have killed us," she said.
Anderson not only stilled Audra's voice but obliterated the family, Lawson said. Audra's father thinks about the details of her death constantly and was determined to "get to" Anderson any way he could. The thoughts, she said, led him down a spiral of alcoholism and driving while intoxicated convictions, and he is now serving time in prison. Audra's mother also has served time in prison for stabbing someone, Lawson said. Memories of the summer of 1992 still tears up everyone too much to dwell on, which is why Lawson said she hopes Anderson's execution will open a new chapter for the family.
Lawson admits that she hasn't forgiven Anderson and probably never will. And if the closure she hopes for doesn't come when Anderson expires tonight, Lawson said she plans to do a lot of praying. "I have like a weight," Lawson said. "It feels like you're heavy inside and I'm hoping it will disappear, and that I'll feel lighter, like there's not a load on me."
Texas Execution Information Center by David Carson.
Robert James Anderson, 40, was executed by lethal injection on 20 July 2006 in Huntsville, Texas for the kidnapping, sexual assault, and murder of a 5-year-old girl.
On 9 June 1992, Audra Reeves was walking home from an Amarillo park. As she passed in front of Anderson's house, Anderson, then 26, abducted her and took her inside. After attempting to rape her, Anderson choked her, beat her with a stool, and stabbed her with a paring knife and a barbecue fork. Anderson then took the girl into the bathroom and drowned her in the bathtub. He then placed her body in a foam ice chest and, using a grocery cart to transport it, left it in a dumpster behind another residence. The ice chest containing the girl's nude body was found in the dumpster by a homeowner throwing out his trash.
The person who found the body also witnessed Anderson near the dumpster earlier. Other witnesses reported seeing Anderson pushing a grocery cart along the street, carrying a white ice chest. The witnesses gave a description of the suspect to police, and Anderson was arrested as he was walking back home. Anderson gave a written confession in which he admitted kidnapping and killing Audra. He said he had recently had an argument with his wife.
Anderson had no prior criminal arrests, but ample evidence was presented at his punishment hearing of his previous sexual assaults on young girls and his violent nature.
His stepsister, Rebekah Anderson, testified that when she was five years old, Anderson had her sit on his lap, then he unzipped his pants and removed her shorts. Rebekah's sister, Delores Davis, testified that when Rebekah was three, she saw Anderson with his hand beneath Rebekah's skirt as she sat on his lap. Anderson's 11-year-old niece, Charity Anderson, testified that about six months before the murder, Anderson babysat for her and her brother and sister. He frequently invited Charity's 8-year-old sister, Raven, to sit on his lap, and on one occasion, he held her 6-year-old brother, Jeremiah, by the throat for several minutes. Anderson's biological sister, Myra, testified that Anderson sexually assaulted her from age 7 to age 13. He forced her to engage in oral sex and attempted to have intercourse with her. Myra also testified that Anderson pushed her down a hill once, and that he once held her down and hit her repeatedly on her knees with a baseball bat. Another stepsister, Helena Garza, testified that Anderson began fondling her when she was six years old. When she was ten, Anderson forced her to have intercourse and perform oral sex about once a week, for about a year, by striking or threatening her with a baseball bat. Anderson also raped Helena when she was 15 or 16. Myra's friend, Carla Burch, testified that when she was 12, she spent the night at the Anderson home. She was awakened during the night by someone touching her face. Anderson was standing in front of her wearing only a towel. He had pulled the covers off of Carla and raised her nightgown. He asked her to come to his room, but she refused. Anderson's ex-wife, Debbie Kay Anderson, testified that Anderson was physically abusive towards her, and that he often padlocked her in their apartment when he left. Debbie also testified that when she was babysitting a 2-year-old girl, she heard the girl crying and walked into the room to see the girl with her diaper removed and Anderson with his pants down. Anderson then grabbed Debbie and began choking and hitting her, telling her not to tell anyone.
A jury convicted Anderson of capital murder in November 1993 and sentenced him to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence in September 1996. His subsequent state appeals were denied. In March 2004, a U.S. district court denied his federal writ of habeas corpus. Anderson filed an appeal to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, but then he decided to waive all further federal appeals. After a psychological evaluation found him competent to waive his appeals, the Fifth Circuit dismissed his appeal in February 2005.
In the competency hearing before U.S. Magistrate Clinton Averitte, Anderson stated that his victim often appeared to him in nightmares. He said that, in prison, he dedicated himself to a Christian way of life, and that God had forgiven him for the killing. "God has granted me peace that I didn't have before," Anderson told Averitte. "I don't want to hurt anybody any longer, and I want to be executed."
In 1998, Anderson was attacked by a fellow death row inmate who stabbed him 67 times with a shank. Anderson said the attack was due to a race-related prison gang extortion effort and was unrelated to his crime.
"My whole life is a regret," Anderson said in a recent interview from death row. "I made bad choices all the way up and down as far back as age ten ... I should have been in prison when I was 15." He said that the day of the killing was "a messed-up day ... a lot of things went wrong." He said that an argument with his wife of about eight months set him off. "She stormed out of the house and said when she returned, she didn't want to find me." He said that at the time of his arrest, "the whole day had slipped me mind ... for about an hour or so, I didn't understand what the cops were asking me. Then suddenly, it just snapped ... everything came flooding back, all at once."
"I'm actually looking forward to dying," Anderson said in the interview. "I've made peace with the Lord and I'm trying to make peace with my family. And I have tried to make apologies with the victim's family over the years, with no responses. I didn't expect them to respond." As his execution date drew near Anderson did not file any of the appeals that condemned prisoners usually file in an effort to have their execution stayed.
Anderson took full responsibility for his crime. "There was nobody else, just me," he said. "She was a totally innocent victim."
"I am sorry for the pain I have caused you," Anderson told the victim's grandmother, Grace Lawson, at his execution. "I have regretted this for a long time. I am sorry. I only ask that you remember the Lord because He remembers us and He forgives us if we ask Him." Anderson also apologized to his own family for "the pain of all the years and for putting you through all the things we had to go through." The lethal injection was then started. As the drugs began taking effect, Anderson prayed. He was pronounced dead at 6:19 p.m.