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Genaro Ruiz CAMACHO
Jr.
Date of
Execution:
August 26,
1998
Offender:
Genaro
Camacho, Jr. #972
Last
Statement:
I love you all.
We had a good service and I’ll be with you. I’ll be waiting
for you in Heaven. Ok. Adios. That’s all I have to say.
On May 20, 1988, David L. Wilburn,
25, unwittingly interfered when Camacho and two
accomplices tried to kidnap Sam Wright, 57, Evellyn
Banks, 31, and Banks's 3 year old son Andre. Wilburn
was shot in the back of the head. After the murder,
Wright managed to escape, but Camacho and his
accomplices kidnapped Evellyn and Andre Banks and
killed them three days later. After this, he fled to
Mexico.
The FBI learned via an informant
that Camacho had escaped to the town of Arcelia, in
Guerrero State, Mexico. They requested that he be
extradited to the United States, but the Mexican
authorities claimed that Arcelia and the surrounding
area were under the total control of heavily-armed
drug barons, and that any arrest attempt would
result in a bloodbath.
Instead, the FBI set up a sting
operation to lure Camacho back to the United States.
Camacho was arrested as he crossed the border near
McAllen, Texas. He was convicted of the murder of
Wilburn and the kidnapping and murder of Evellyn and
Andre Banks, and sentenced to death.
Camacho had a last meal of steak,
baked potato, salad, and strawberry ice cream, and
was executed by lethal injection on August 26, 1998.
The execution had to be delayed by two hours,
because of difficulties locating a suitable vein for
the injection.
The three murders in 1988
were among at least five slayings authorities linked to Camacho,
described as a mid-level drug dealer who brought marijuana into
Texas from Mexico and who used murder to keep people in line.
Jurors at his sentencing
were told of at least two other slayings, including a 23-year-old
Dallas topless dancer, Pamela Miller, whose dismembered body was fed
through a tree shredder after a botched drug deal. She was
beaten to death and had her head run over twice by a car before
being dismembered. "He was such a vicious murderer he scared off
his own people," Sue Korioth, an assistant district attorney in
Dallas, said. "I think he enjoyed killing these people."
Camacho was condemned for
the May 20, 1988, shooting of David Wilburn, 25, who walked into the
home of a neighbor, Sam Wright. What he didn't know was
Camacho and two other men, with a fourth man standing guard outside,
had burst into the Pleasant Grove home minutes earlier to collect a
heroin debt. Wilburn was ordered to the floor and shot immediately
in the back of the head.
As Wright fled, a woman in
the house, Evellyn Banks, 31, and her 3 -year-old son, Andre Banks,
were abducted by Camacho's group and shot three days later, buried
in a shallow grave in Johnston County, Okla., and covered with kitty
litter.
One of Camacho's companions
told how his boss ordered the baby shot repeatedly because the child
continued to make noises after the initial shot. The two
bodies were found about three months later. Camacho by then had fled
to Mexico. He was arrested more than a year later as he tried to
cross back into Texas.
Camacho was sentenced in
federal court to life for the kidnapping of Banks and her son.
Two of his companions also are serving prison terms while the
fourth was ruled incompetent to stand trial and was sent to a
federal prison psychiatric center.
In an interview a week
before he was executed, Camacho contended his arrest was the result
of a payoff between U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration operatives
and Mexican police, that he had no role in any murders and was not a
drug kingpin with a lucrative smuggling business, as described by
authorities. "If I was, I would have hired the best attorneys
around and I guarantee you I wouldn't be in here," he said from a
cage in the death row visiting area. But he said he was resigned to
dying. "I'm ready for it, we've made all the preparations. I can't
do much about it," he said. "It's a new beginning."
One of the eyewitnesses,
Sabrina Wilson, said she saw Camacho drive by after Wilburn was
murdered. The other three eyewitnesses said they weren’t sure if
Camacho was even there that day.
Camacho has also been linked
to five other murders, according to the FBI, including the slaying
of a topless dancer, 23-year-old Pamela Miller, in June 1988. She
was kidnapped and her body was put through a tree mulcher.
The FBI was accused of
withholding 21 volumes of information they had on Camacho.
“Do you know how many volumes I got to see? Only one!” said defense
attorney Julius Whittier. “There is no telling what evidence could
have been presented.” Whittier had base his
cross-examination from only that volume.
The only proof that was
shown that Camacho committed the murder of Wilburn came from the
other witnesses, who all have cases pending with the federal
government.
“What is to say that these
witnesses cut a deal with FBI to incriminate Camacho so as to get
themselves off the hook,” Whittier said. “Do you really think
they would incriminate themselves? Those other
witnesses had something to gain by identifying Camacho.”
According to appeals
documents, when Camacho arrived at Sam Wright’s house, he was not
only there to collect drug money, but had an intent to kill.
He shot Wilburn in the back of the head and kidnapped his 31-year-old
girlfriend, Evellyn Banks, and her 3-year-old son Andre.
Three days later they were found murdered and
buried in Oklahoma.
The FBI had a warrant out
for Wright’s arrest for Distribution of Heroine. He had been
a fugitive on the loose for three years. The FBI
knew where he had been for those three years and hadn’t arrested him
yet, because they wanted to see what kind of transactions he would
make with Camacho.
Wright escaped the day of
the murder and called the FBI three days later and told them that
Camacho killed Wilburn.
“There is no telling where
Wright is today,” Whittier said.
Seventeen years ago Camacho
committed a drug crime and was tried as a juvenile. For the next 17
years Camacho was followed by the FBI, but was never arrested for a
drug crime again.
In 1993, a Dallas County
jury convicted Camacho of capital murder and sentenced him to die
for Wilburn’s murder.
Camacho’s appeals were
denied by the courts and died by lethal injection on Aug. 26, 1998.
“I don’t think that the
death penalty is right, because there are too many questions that go
unanswered and I feel that in this case a man was put to death that
may have been innocent,” Camacho’s personal attorney James Murphy
said. Whittier, Camacho’s defense attorney, felt that “all the
evidence wasn’t presented” and that “the trial lacked in fairness.”