Convict who killed two over $20 drug deal becomes first inmate executed in 2017

A Texas man who killed two people in a revenge plot over a $20 drug deal has become the first US inmate executed in 2017.


Christopher Wilkins, 48, was executed by lethal injection at 6pm on Wednesday in the state's death chamber in Huntsville.The execution is the 539th in Texas since the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 - the most of any state.


The planned lethal injection came as the number of US executions fell to a quarter-century low in 2016.Wilkins was convicted of killing Willie Freeman, 40, and Mike Silva, 33, in 2005 in the Fort Worth area and dumping their bodies.Prosecutors contended Wilkins paid $20 for crack cocaine and Freeman gave him a piece of gravel instead.

Freeman laughed at Wilkins, told him it was a joke and gave him drugs to make amends.

Wilkins, incensed by being tricked, took revenge on Freeman, according to court documents, adding Wilkins said he killed Silva because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

A few weeks later, Wilkins met Freeman and they got into a car with Silva on what Wilkins said was a trip for a deal to acquire illicit goods, the documents said.Wilkins shot Freeman in the back of the head. Silva stopped the car and tried to get out but became entangled in the seatbelt. Wilkins shot him three times, they said.

At trial in 2008, Wilkins admitted to a string of crimes, that included the killings.

He also told a jury he did not care if he lived or died, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported at the time.

Daily Record