This week in 2004

“…I would like to clear some things up if I could. Tommy Perkins, the man that got a capital life sentence for murdering Kinslow— he did not do it. I did it. He would not even have had anything to do with it if he had known I was going to shoot the man. He would not have gone with me if he had known. I was paid to shoot the man. And Martin, the younger boy, did not know what it was about. He thought it was just a robbery. I am sorry for that. It was nothing personal. I was trying to make a living…I am sorry for all the grief I have caused. I love you all. That is all I have to say.”

— Billy Vickers, convicted of murder, lethal injection,Texas.
Executed January 28, 2004

Vickers had multiple convictions for robbery, arson, and gun possession dating back to 1967. In his final statement, he confessed to the murders of more than a dozen men other than the grocery store owner he was executed for shooting to death during a botched robbery in 1993.