Texas Executes Another 'Texas 7' Escapee

HUNTSVILLE, TX-- Joseph Garcia was executed Tuesday night after participating in the killing of a police officer during an armed robbery.

Garcia was serving a fifty year sentence when he and six other inmates escaped from the prison.

The seven men fled north in a prison truck after overpowering the prison guards, taking their uniforms, stealing 14 handguns, a shotgun, an AR-15 rifle and more than 100 rounds of ammunition.

The crew then hid from law enforcement officers until Christmas Eve. They then attempted robbing a sporting goods store in Irving, TX.

Officer Aubrey Hawkins arrived at the store when the men instantly fired at him.

Hawkings was shot nearly a dozen times and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Garcia pleaded his case to the judge saying that he was not one of the five men who shot officer Hawkins.

The “Texas Seven” drove to Colorado where they hid out in an RV park until January.

By then, their story had made national headlines and group member Larry Harper had killed himself.

The men were then captured and taken back to Texas and all were charged capital murder.

Garcia was the fourth of the seven to be executed.  Michael Rodriguez, George Rivas and Donald Newbury were executed between 2008 and 2015 and Patrick Murphy and Randy Halprin are awaiting execution dates.

"It wasn’t supposed to happen,” Garcia said in a recent Houston Chronicle interview. “I wish I could take everything back.”