2007-09-05

Amarillo woman's killer to die

By Dan Packard - Amarillo Globe News

September 5, 2007

Tony Roach is scheduled to die Wednesday for the brutal 1998 killing of Amarillo resident Ronnie Dawn Hewitt. Roach strangled her with a belt, raped her after she died, then set fire to her apartment.

She was 37. Her friends called her Kitten. Dureama Mincher is one of those friends. "We were very close," Mincher said.

Mincher said she and others close to Hewitt were devastated and shocked when they heard the news of her death, which occurred on June 8, 1998. "That was horrible. Kitten was a very little person, and she went through a lot. She didn't deserve that," Mincher said.

Roach, however, will get what he deserves, Mincher said. "Normally I'm against the death penalty, but that was just too much," she said.

If certain circumstances work out, Mincher said, she plans to attend the execution by lethal injection in Huntsville to personally observe the end of a long ordeal. "It's just a good thing that it's coming to an end," she said. "She deserves some justice."

Laila Book said she knew Hewitt for about 20 years. She still keeps a photo of the victim in her living room, she said. "She was one of the best people I've ever met," Book said. "When this happened she was happier than she'd ever been and was getting ready to get married." Book said she and Roach exchanged three letters while he was in prison. "I finally broke down and wrote to him because I just had to know what went through someone's mind to do what he did," she said.

She said she never got a satisfactory answer. "I think he just snapped," Book said. "It was horrible what he did, but I've forgiven him for what he's done because you have to forgive." Hewitt left a daughter, Nakita, who was 9 at the time of her mother's death. She moved in with her grandparents in Amarillo, Mincher said.

Authorities captured Roach in Guymon, Okla., where he confessed the killing to police while being questioned about a bicycle theft.

Roach, 22 at the time, told Amarillo police he broke into Hewitt's apartment at 1216 W. 11th Ave. through a window and waited about 15 minutes before the victim walked into the apartment.

Rebecca King, 47th District attorney at the time, read Roach's confession in court. According to the confession: ** The victim pleaded for Roach not to hurt her. ** Roach told Hewitt he wouldn't hurt her, but a struggle ensued and he strangled her with a multicolored belt. Roach said he knotted the belt to kill Hewitt and later raped her after she was dead. ** Roach said he removed two rings from the victim's hand and started a fire in the apartment before he left.

Testimony showed Roach pawned the rings and other items at pawn shops in Amarillo and Guymon. Roach arrived in Amarillo by bus from South Carolina, where he stayed in constant trouble with the law, reports show.

Amarillo attorney C.J. McElroy served as a court-appointed attorney on Roach's defense team during the trial. "It was almost like he wanted to be caught," McElroy said. "There wasn't anything at that point in time to connect him to the crime. It was his confession that allowed police to backtrack."

She said the trial was difficult from a defense perspective because prosecutors had DNA evidence from a sexual assault, pawned items from the scene - and the confession. "Plus, his name didn't help," McElroy said.

A statement to police that he wanted to be executed made it hard to avoid any other outcome for the defense, she said. McElroy said Roach reacted differently than most people she defends. "Tony was really remorseful about what had happened," she said. "I'm saddened by the fact that we'll be executing somebody," she said. "The Legislature finally in the last session gave us the option of life without parole, but we didn't have that option when Tony's trial was going on."

Walt Weaver, another court-appointed attorney for Roach, called the execution "a tragedy." "Would we rather spend a million bucks feeding children, or would we rather spend a million bucks executing Tony?" he said.

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Txexecutions.org

Tony Roach, 30, was executed by lethal injection on 5 September 2007 in Huntsville, Texas for murdering a woman while burglarizing her home.

On 8 June 1998, Roach, then 21, knocked on the door of Ronnie "Kitten" Hewitt's Amarillo apartment. Receiving no answer, he pried open a window and crawled inside. Roach then saw Hewitt, 29, sitting in the living room, but she did not see or hear him. Roach hid from Hewitt for about fifteen minutes while she took a shower and spoke on the telephone. Then, when she was walking down the hallway, Roach came out of hiding and grabbed her, putting his hand over her mouth. He told her he would not hurt her, and she pleaded with him not to. Roach then pushed her into the living room. They struggled. Roach then placed a belt around Hewitt's neck and strangled her. He then had vaginal and anal intercourse with her body.

After taking some rings, a knife, money, and beer, and helping himself to some food from the refrigerator, Roach set fire to the victim's apartment using hair spray and a cigarette lighter, then left. The victim's body was discovered by firefighters.

About ten days later, Roach was arrested in Guymon, Oklahoma, for stealing some cigarettes and reselling them. While being questioned, he confessed to killing a woman in Amarillo named Kitten. According to his confession, he promised not to hurt Hewitt, but then after he pushed her into the living room, she began kicking and scratching him, so he strangled her.

In addition to Roach's confession, the prosecution presented DNA evidence from the victim's body and evidence showing that Roach pawned the victim's rings in Amarillo and Oklahoma. He also made a statement to police that he wanted to be executed.

Roach had a criminal history in four states, going back to his days as a youth in South Carolina, where he was committed to juvenile facilities five times for burglary and theft. In 1993, he committed a car theft and two armed robberies and assaulted his girlfriend by pointing a gun to her head and threatening to blow her brains out if she did not accompany him to Florida. He was sentenced to six years in prison and was paroled in 1998 after serving five years of his sentence.

In May 1988, Roach stole a vehicle, a video camera, and some cash from his boss in Greenville and drove to Jacksonville. He got a job there, but then he stole money from a motel and fled by bus to Amarillo. About three days before Hewitt's murder, he robbed and beat Carroll Doshier. The victim, who was 71 and had only one leg, died of a heart attack after the beating. Roach also shoplifted from a store, snatched a purse, stole a radio from a car, burglarized a home, and cashed stolen checks.

In Guymon, Oklahoma, after the murder, Roach stole a bicycle, burglarized an office building, and burglarized a convenience store.

A jury convicted Roach of capital murder in May 1999 and sentenced him to death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction and sentence in November 2001. All of his subsequent appeals in state and federal court were denied.

Roach declined to speak to reporters in the weeks preceding his execution. Amarillo attorney C.J. McElroy, who defended him at his trial, said that Roach was very remorseful about what happened.

Roach was emotional at his execution. During his last statement, he repeatedly asked the victim's fiancee and daughter, who watched from a viewing room, for forgiveness. "So much hurt I've caused you all," he said, his voice cracking, and his eyes full of tears. "I can only imagine how you feel. I pray the Lord Jesus Christ touches your heart the way He's touched mine."

"I can't agree with this justice the state is carrying out, but I accept it and I'm sorry," Roach continued. "I have no ill will toward anyone carrying out this so-called justice. I leave y'all in God's care." When his last statement was finished, the lethal injection was started. He was pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m.

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ProDeathPenalty.com

In June 1998 firefighters found the body of Ronnie “Kitten” Hewitt inside her burning apartment in Amarillo, Texas. Though the fire burned her body, it was determined that she died from asphyxiation from being choked by a belt found tightened around her neck; she likely had been sexually assaulted; and someone set fire to her house using aerosol hair spray.

Later that month, police officers in Oklahoma questioned Roach about an unrelated crime, and during the questioning Roach confessed to killing a woman named Kitten in Amarillo.

He signed a written confession in which he stated that he entered Hewitt’s apartment through a window, confronted her, and choked her with his arm and then with a belt until she died. Then, he raped her vaginally and anally and took money, a knife, a beer, and some rings. Finally, he described using hair spray to set the apartment on fire. A knife identified as Kitten’s and two of her rings were retrieved from pawn shops in Amarillo and in Guymon, Oklahoma, along with pawn slips signed by Roach.

Semen was present in vaginal and anal swabs. Roach was excluded as the contributor of the vaginal swab, but the DNA profile of the contributor of the semen found in the anal swab matched his DNA in ten different areas; such a profile would occur in only one in six billion Caucasians, Blacks, or Hispanics. A jury convicted Roach of capital murder, and he was sentenced to death.

UPDATE: Tony Roach was executed after apologizing to the family members of his victim who had come to watch him die. Roach repeatedly asked for forgiveness from the fiancé and the daughter of his victim, who stood a few feet away looking through a window. "So much hurt I've caused you all," Roach said. "I can only imagine how you feel. I pray the Lord Jesus Christ touches your heart the way he's touched mine." Saying that he was to blame for the killing, Roach said he knew the victim was "in a good place. I can't agree with this justice the state is carrying out, but I accept it and I'm sorry," he said. "I have no ill will toward anyone carrying out this so-called justice. I leave y'all in God's care."

South Carolina parolee executed for Texas slaying

By Michael Graczyk - Houston Chronicle

Associated Press - Sept. 5, 2007

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A repentant South Carolina drifter was executed Wednesday evening for strangling, robbing and raping an Amarillo woman a few months after he had been paroled from prison.

Tony Roach spoke for several minutes, his voice cracking at times and a tear at the corner of his eye. He repeatedly sought forgiveness from the fiance and the daughter of his victim, who stood a few feet away looking through a window. "So much hurt I've caused you all," Roach said. "I can only imagine how you feel. I pray the Lord Jesus Christ touches your heart the way he's touched mine."

Saying that he was to blame for the killing, Roach said he knew the victim was "in a good place." "I can't agree with this justice the state is carrying out but I accept it and I'm sorry," he said. "I have no ill will toward anyone carrying out this so-called justice. I leave y'all in God's care." He was pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m., nine minutes after the lethal flow of drugs began.

Roach, 30, was the 24th condemned inmate put to death this year in the nation's most active capital punishment state. The total equals the number of executions carried out in Texas all of last year. Four other inmates are set to die this month.

Roach confessed to and was convicted of the June 1998 slaying of Ronnie Dawn Hewitt, 37. He'd been released from a South Carolina prison in February 1998 after serving five years of a six-year term for armed robbery and assault. By the time he was arrested in Oklahoma two weeks after Hewitt's death, he left a trail of offenses from South Carolina to Florida, then Texas to Oklahoma.

"I just remember him being very quiet, never repentant, never anything, just very cold," said Rebecca King, who prosecuted the case. "We only go for the death penalty when there's no other choice. "That was not a hard one to know we had to go for the death penalty."

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year denied Roach permission to move forward with other appeals. His appeals lawyer, Joe Marr Wilson, said he didn't believe he had anything left to pursue in the courts to try to stop the punishment.

Firefighters responding to a blaze at Hewitt's apartment found her body. She had been strangled with a belt. Then she was raped after she already was dead. Roach was picked up by police about 120 miles to the north in Guymon, Okla., for stealing some cigarettes and reselling them. During questioning, he volunteered to officers they should ask him about the murder of a woman in Amarillo.

"This really wasn't a guilt-innocence case," Walt Weaver, who defended Roach at his capital murder trial, said. "He did it. He confessed." Roach declined to speak with reporters in the weeks preceding his scheduled punishment.

Weaver said Roach had been locked up as a juvenile and had difficulty on the outside once he would be released. "He wrote me a letter," Weaver said. "He said he met his peace. He forgave me. He knows he did it. "It just saddens me."

Hewitt, known as "Kitten" to her friends, was killed after Roach climbed through a bedroom window of her apartment, hid there while she took a shower and spoke on the telephone, then attacked her. Evidence showed after he killed her he raped her, ate food from her refrigerator, then set her place on fire.

Authorities determined that three days before Hewitt's death, Roach robbed and beat a 71-year-old one-legged man in Amarillo. The man died of a heart attack after the beating. Roach had an extensive record for burglary and theft as a teenager and had five stints in juvenile lockups, records showed. He pleaded guilty to the theft and robbery charges that got him the six-year prison term in South Carolina.

He found a job in Greenville, S.C., but then fled to Jacksonville, Fla., after stealing from his boss. In Florida, he stole money from a motel, then took a bus to Amarillo. Besides the two deaths there, records showed him responsible for a theft from a Kmart store, a purse snatching, a theft from a car, burglary of a house and writing checks from a stolen checkbook.

In Guymon, authorities said he also stole a bicycle, broke into a Girl Scout office where he took money, postage and some knives, and broke into a convenience store where he stole cigarettes he was accused of selling.

Scheduled to die next is Joseph Lave, 42, facing execution Sept. 13. Lave was condemned for a 1992 robbery at a sporting goods store in the Dallas suburb of Richardson where two employees, Frederick Banzhaf and Justin Marquart, both 18, were beaten with a hammer and had their throats slit.