Texas man who stabbed wife and 2 stepsons to death, raped 2 teenage stepdaughters set to be executed
HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS: A Texas man who was convicted for the murders of his wife and two stepsons is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at the Huntsville State Penitentiary on Wednesday, September 25.
When everyone was asleep at his Dallas home in September 2007, the 45-year-old Robert Sparks, stabbed his 30-year-old wife Chare Agnew 18 times in their bed, according to the Texas Tribune.
Then, he woke up his stepsons, 10-year-old Raekwon Agnew, and nine-year-old Harold Sublet Jr., and stabbed them repeatedly as well, with Harold being stabbed at least 45 times.
After killing them, he raped his two stepdaughters, then 12 and 14, and called the police, confessing to all the crimes. However, he insisted to investigators that his family had been poisoning him.
He wanted authorities to test him for poison, as well as subject his stepdaughters to polygraph examinations. He also claimed a voice had told him to kill his family.
A heated and often emotional trial ultimately saw the jury convict Sparks of capital murder and recommend the death sentence in December 2008, but his attorneys have argued that if Texas goes ahead with the execution, they would be killing an intellectually disabled man.
Sparks has been diagnosed as psychotic with delusions and with schizoaffective disorder, according to court records. His attorneys also pointed to his IQ score of 75, which is a borderline number for disability.
They further highlighted his struggle in special education classes and poor learning and memory that strongly indicate that he is ineligible for the death penalty under the US Supreme Court precedent that forbids the execution of the intellectually disabled.
In their filings to the country's highest court, they brought up false testimony from a witness who said that Sparks, if sentenced to life in prison instead of death, would be given lower-security housing and give him the chance to eat and socialize with other inmates, and said it had influenced the jury to vote for the death penalty.
They also said his right to a fair trial and impartial jury had been further affected when a bailiff wore a homemade tie depicting a syringe on the day the jury went into deliberation on whether they should go for execution.
He was seated behind sparks, in full view of the jury, and later admitted the tie was to show his support for the death penalty. They had asked that his execution be delayed and have fought for more time and resources to prepare a filing to argue the same.
However, they saw the appeals filed in both state and federal appellate court rejected. His fate is now in the hands of either Gov. Greg Abbott or the country's highest court.
If Texas proceeds with the execution, he will be the seventh person to be executed in the state in 2019, with seven more scheduled to be executed by the end of the year.