This week in 1999

“I am being charged under article 19.83 of the Texas Penal Code of murder with the promise of remuneration. That means they got to have three people, the one that paid, the one that killed, and the deceased. And the alleged remunerator is out on the streets, so how come I’m being executed today, without a remunerator? This is a great American justice. So if you don’t think they won’t, believe me they will. Ain’t no telling who gonna be next. That’s all I have to say…Bye.”

— Martin Sauceda Vega, convicted of murder, lethal injection Texas.
Executed January 26, 1999

Martin Vega confessed to a “murder-for-hire” in 1988, three years after the body of James Mims was found shot. Mims’s wife, Linda, had offered to marry Vega and share the $250,000 life insurance policy if he killed her husband.