James Bigby EXECUTED in Texas for the Murder of a Friend and His Infant Son | Death Row Documentary

On March 14th, 2017, after spending more than 26 years on death row, James Bigby was executed by lethal injection at the Huntsville Unit in Texas. He was 61 years old. In this video, we will talk about what happened, his last words, and his last meal. But to uncover the events of that fateful night and why James ended up being executed, we have to go back to a winter evening in December 1987 and a dinner invitation that would end in a brutal killing spree.

December 23rd, 1987, a cold Wednesday evening in Arlington, Texas. James Eugene Bigby, a 32-year-old mechanic, walked into a grocery store and bought two T-bone steaks. He had a plan. He was going to visit his friend Michael Treakel, bring the steaks as a gift, and they would cook dinner together while watching television.

It seemed like a normal gesture. That’s the kind of thing friends do during the holidays. But James Bigby wasn’t planning to have dinner with Michael Treakel. He was planning to kill him. Bigby had been spiraling for weeks. He worked as a mechanic at the Frito-Lay body shop in Fort Worth, and he had filed a worker’s compensation claim against the company.

But Bigby suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, a mental illness that had plagued him for years, and his delusions were getting worse. He had become convinced that his friends, people he had known for years, were conspiring with Frito-Lay to sabotage his claim. He believed they were working against him, plotting behind his back, trying to destroy him.

None of it was true, but in Bigby’s mind, it was real, and he had decided what needed to be done. He told people he wanted to go out in a blaze of glory. Early on that Wednesday evening, with two steaks in hand, James Bigby drove to Michael Trekle’s trailer home in Arlington. He had no idea that by sunrise, four people would be dead.

Michael Trekle was 26 years old, a hardworking man trying to build a life for himself in Arlington. He lived in a modest trailer home with his girlfriend Grace Caylor and her infant son Jason. Jason was 4 months old, born in August 1987, a happy baby who had his whole life ahead of him. That Wednesday evening, Grace was at work.

She had left Michael at home to watch Jason while she earned money to support their family. Michael had no reason to be worried. His friend James Bigby was coming over for dinner. They would cook steaks, watch some TV, relax. It was the kind of casual evening two friends share without thinking twice. And when Bigby arrived at the trailer, Michael greeted him warmly.

Bigby handed him the steaks and Michael got to work in the kitchen. He sat at the table preparing the meat, probably talking with Bigby about football or work or whatever was on his mind. The television was on in the background. Everything seemed normal. Michael had no idea his friend was standing behind him with a gun.

Bigby pulled out a .357 Magnum revolver, raised it, aimed at the back of Michael’s head, and pulled the trigger. The gunshot echoed through the small trailer. Michael collapsed forward onto the kitchen table, blood pouring from the wound. He died instantly. His body slumped over the steaks he had been preparing.

 James Bigby stood over his friend’s corpse and felt nothing. No remorse, no regret. Just a cold certainty that what he had done was necessary. You doubt but Bigby wasn’t finished. In the other room, Jason was in his crib. Bigby went to the child and attempted to suffocate him with cellophane wrap from the kitchen, but when that didn’t work, he carried the infant to the bathroom.

There, Bigby drowned Jason in the sink. When it was over, Bigby left both bodies in the trailer. Michael’s body was still at the kitchen table. And James Bigby got into his car and drove to Fort Worth to kill again. Calvin Wesley Crane Jr. was 38 years old and lived in an apartment in Fort Worth. He was another of Bigby’s friends, another man Bigby had convinced himself was part of the conspiracy.

Bigby arrived at Crane’s apartment later that evening and knocked on the door. Crane answered, surprised but happy to see his friend. They sat down and talked for a while, just two guys catching up. Then, Bigby asked Crane for a favor. He said he thought someone was following him, that he needed Crane to drive him around so they could check if he was being watched.

 It sounded paranoid, but Crane agreed. They got into Crane’s truck and started driving through the streets of Fort Worth. Bigby sat in the passenger seat, his hand near his waistband where he had hidden the .357 Magnum. After a few minutes of driving, Bigby told Crane to pull over. Crane obeyed, pulling the truck to the side of the road.

 Bigby pulled out the gun, pointed it at Crane’s head, and ordered him to get out of the vehicle. Crane stepped out onto the roadside, confused, terrified, trying to understand what was happening. Why was his friend pointing a gun at him? What had he done? He never got answers. James Bigby shot Calvin Crane in the head, execution-style, and Bigby left his body on the side of the road.

 Blood and brain matter splattered onto the pavement. Bigby climbed into the driver’s seat of Crane’s truck and drove back to Crane’s apartment. He retrieved some items from his own car, loaded them into the stolen truck, and drove away. Calvin Crane’s body would be found later, another victim in what was quickly becoming a massacre.

It was now early morning on December 24th, Christmas Eve. Most people in Arlington were asleep, dreaming of the holiday, unaware that a killer was driving through their streets. James Bigby pulled up to the home of Frank Curtis Johnson, known to his friends as Bubba. Johnson was 33 years old, another of Bigby’s friends, another man Bigby believed had betrayed him.

It was approximately 3:20 in the morning when Bigby rang Johnson’s doorbell. Inside the house, Bubba woke up groggy and confused. Who would be at his door at this hour? He got out of bed, walked to the front door, and opened it. James Bigby was standing there holding a shotgun. The two men had a brief discussion.

What they said to each other in those final moments, no one knows. But whatever words were exchanged, they didn’t last long. Bigby raised the shotgun and fired once, twice, three times. Frank Johnson’s body was blown backward by the force of the blasts. He collapsed in his doorway, dead before he hit the ground.

 James Bigby turned and walked back to the stolen truck. He drove off into the night, leaving Bubba Johnson’s body cooling in the entrance to his home. In less than 7 hours, James Bigby had murdered four people. Michael Treckel, shot in the back of the head. Jason Keeler, drowned in a sink. Calvin Crane, or shot on the side of the road.

 Frank Johnson, gunned down in his own doorway. Four lives extinguished because of one man’s paranoid delusions. Around 5:00 in the morning on December 24th, Grace Keeler returned home from work. She was exhausted from her shift, ready to see Michael and check on baby Jason. When she walked into the trailer, something felt wrong.

 The lights were still on, the television was playing, and Michael wasn’t there to greet her. She walked into the kitchen and saw him. Michael was slumped over the table, blood everywhere, a gunshot wound to the back of his head. Grace screamed. She grabbed the phone and dialed 911, her hands shaking, her voice breaking, as she told the operator that Michael was unconscious, that something terrible had happened.

But even as she spoke to the dispatcher, a worse horror was dawning on her. Where was Jason? Grace ran to the baby’s room. The crib was empty. She searched frantically, calling his name, her heart pounding. Then she looked in the bathroom. There in the sink, face down in cold water, was her son. Grace didn’t recognize him at first.

 The water had distorted his features, but it was Jason, her 4-month-old baby, drowned, murdered, left floating in a bathroom sink. Grace’s screams brought neighbors running. Arlington police officer James Greenwell arrived at approximately 5:10 in the morning to find a scene of unspeakable horror. A young man shot dead at his kitchen table, an infant drowned in a sink, and a mother in shock, barely able to process what had been done to her family.

Officer Greenwell began collecting evidence immediately. He gathered beer cans and a wine cooler bottle from the trash, hoping to find fingerprints. Grace told him about the three streaks on the kitchen table that hadn’t been there when she left for work. She also told police about James Bigby, Michael’s friend who visited frequently, the man who had been hospitalized for mental illness multiple times, the man who had told people he wanted to go out in a blaze of glory.

 Police immediately identified Bigby as a suspect. They contacted Fort Worth police and began searching for him. Meanwhile, more bodies were being discovered. Calvin Crane’s body was found on the side of the road in Fort Worth shot in the head. Frank Johnson’s body was found in the doorway of his Arlington home killed by shotgun blasts.

 Four murders in one night all committed by the same man. The Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office launched a massive manhunt. James Bigby was armed, dangerous, and clearly willing to kill without hesitation. On December 26th, 1987, just 2 days after the murders, Fort Worth police located Bigby at a motel. They surrounded the building and called for him to surrender.

 What followed was a tense SWAT standoff that lasted hours. Inside the motel room, James Bigby was heavily armed. Police would later find a sawed-off shotgun, two pistols, a flare gun, ammunition, and blasting caps in the room. Bigby threatened to commit suicide. He told negotiators he wanted to go out in a blaze of glory, the same phrase he had used before the murders.

A police negotiator was brought in to talk Bigby down. The negotiator tried to reason with him telling him he had rights, that he deserved his day in court. “You’re an American,” the negotiator said, “you’re presumed innocent until proven guilty. Everything is going to be all right.” Bigby’s response was chilling.

“I’m guilty,” he said, “I know it and so do you. After hours of negotiation, James Bigby finally surrendered. He was taken into custody without further incident and transported to the Tarrant County Jail. Once in custody, Bigby gave a full written confession. He described in detail how he had killed Michael Treacle, how he had drowned baby Jason, how he had shot Calvin Crane and Frank Johnson.

 He explained his paranoid belief that his friends were conspiring with Fredo Leahy to destroy his workers’ compensation claim. And he made a statement that would haunt investigators for years. “I regret killing the baby,” Bigby said, “but not the other.” Fingerprints from the wine cooler bottle found at the crime scene matched Bigby’s prints.

 The physical evidence, combined with his confession, made the case against him overwhelming. James Bigby was charged with the capital murders of Michael Treacle and Jason Keeler. Prosecutors decided not to charge him with the murders of Calvin Crane and Frank Johnson, focusing instead on the double homicide at the trailer. Under Texas law, killing more than one person during the same criminal transaction qualifies as capital murder, which carries either life in prison without parole or the death penalty.

Bigby’s trial began in March 1991, more than 3 years after the murders. His defense team faced an almost impossible task. Their client had confessed to everything. The evidence against him was overwhelming. The only real defense they had was insanity. Bigby’s attorneys argued that he suffered from chronic paranoid schizophrenia, that he had been in the grip of severe mental illness when he committed the murders, and that he could not distinguish right from wrong at the time of the killings.

 To support this claim, the defense called Dr. James Grigson, a psychiatrist who would become infamous in Texas legal circles. Dr. Grigson was known as Dr. Death because he had testified in 167 capital murder trials, almost always for the prosecution, and his testimony had helped send dozens of men to death row. But in this case, Dr.

 Grigson testified for the defense. He told the jury that James Bigby suffered from chronic paranoid schizophrenia. Uh he stated that Bigby was not aware of the difference between right and wrong when he killed Michael Treckel and Jason Caylor. When asked if there was any other explanation for the murders, Dr. Grigson said there was not.

It was a powerful endorsement from a man who had built his career helping prosecutors secure death sentences. The defense also presented evidence about Bigby’s troubled childhood. His mother had allegedly drunk alcohol while pregnant with him. She had breastfed him until he was 7 years old, an unusually long time.

 She had given away his siblings to be raised by other relatives, and Bigby had grown up fearing that he, too, would be abandoned. His family had a history of mental illness. Multiple relatives suffered from psychiatric disorders and had struggled to live functional lives. And the defense argued that Bigby was a product of neglect, abuse, and untreated mental illness.

They painted a picture of a man who had never had a chance, whose mind had been broken long before he ever walked into Michael Treckel’s trailer. But the prosecution had a different story to tell. Assistant District Attorney Charles Mallin told the jury that James Bigby was not insane. He was a coward. “He’s a backstabber,” Mallin said.

 “He shoots people from behind. He drowns babies. This isn’t mental illness. This is evil.” The prosecution pointed to Bigbee’s criminal history. He had two previous felony convictions for burglary and theft. He had served five months of a three-year sentence in 1977 and three months of a two-year sentence in 1983.

Prosecutors also mentioned a history of sexual assault, though Bigbee was never convicted of those crimes. They argued that Bigbee knew exactly what he was doing when he killed four people. He planned the murders. He brought steaks to Michael’s trailer to lower his guard. He methodically went from victim to victim, executing them one by one.

 That’s not the behavior of someone who doesn’t know right from wrong. That’s the behavior of a cold-blooded killer. On March 12th, 1991, the jury began deliberations. They had heard weeks of testimony, examined the evidence, listened to experts argue about Bigbee’s mental state. But in the end, the decision was easy.

 It took them just 25 minutes to reach a verdict, guilty of capital murder. James Bigbee showed no visible reaction when the verdict was read. He sat quietly, staring straight ahead as if the outcome didn’t matter to him. But the trial wasn’t over. Now came the punishment phase, where the jury would decide whether Bigbee should be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole.

 And during this phase, something happened that would shock everyone in the courtroom. During a recess, James Bigbee stood up from the defense table and walked toward Judge Don Leonard’s bench. The judge was not in the courtroom at that moment. Bailiff Tim Stallings saw Bigbee approaching and ordered him to stop.

 But Bigbee ignored him. He reached the judge’s bench, opened a drawer, and pulled out a loaded .38 caliber revolver. Stallings shouted at him to drop the weapon. Bigby turned, pointed the gun at the bailiff, and Stallings dove behind a desk. Bigby ran through the door into the hallway and headed straight for Judge Leonard’s chambers.

Judge Don Leonard was sitting at his desk working on paperwork when his chamber door burst open. James Bigby stood in the doorway holding the .38 caliber revolver pointing it directly at the judge’s head. “Let’s go, Judge.” Bigby said. For a moment, time seemed to freeze. A convicted murderer was standing in a judge’s chambers pointing a loaded gun at his head in the middle of a capital murder trial.

Judge Leonard didn’t hesitate. He jumped out of his chair, lunged at Bigby, and grabbed his gun hand. He slammed Bigby’s arm against the wall with all his strength. The bailiff and an assistant district attorney rushed into the room and helped wrestle Bigby to the ground. The three men pinned him, pried the gun from his hand, and secured him.

No shots were fired. No one was injured. But the courtroom incident had just added another layer of chaos to an already shocking trial. Bigby’s defense team immediately moved for a mistrial. They argued that their client’s actions had so prejudiced the proceedings that a fair trial was no longer possible.

 The judge denied the motion. They then moved for Judge Leonard to recuse himself arguing that he could not be impartial after being held at gunpoint by the defendant. The judge denied that motion as well. A presiding administrative judge held a hearing to determine if Judge Leonard could continue. The judge testified that Bigby’s assault had not prejudiced him, that he could still be fair and impartial.

The administrative judge agreed, and the trial resumed with Judge Leonard still on the bench. After the defense rested its case in the punishment phase, Judge Leonard allowed the prosecution to introduce testimony about the gun incident. The state argued that Bigby’s actions showed consciousness of guilt, that he knew what he had done was wrong, and was trying to escape justice by any means necessary.

If Bigby truly didn’t know right from wrong, the prosecution argued, why would he grab a gun and threaten a judge? The jury deliberated on punishment and returned with their decision. Death. James Bigby was sentenced to die by lethal injection. The families of Michael Treckel and Jason Keeler quietly wept and embraced.

 For them, justice had been served. But the legal battle was far from over. Bigby’s case would spend the next 26 years winding through the appellate courts. In 1994, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed his conviction and sentence. Bigby’s attorneys continued to file appeals, arguing that the jury had not been properly instructed about how to consider mitigating evidence like his mental illness.

In 2003, uh the case reached the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. On March 8th, 2005, the Fifth Circuit issued a stunning decision. They vacated Bigby’s death sentence, ruling that the jury had not been properly instructed under a Supreme Court case called Penry versus Lynaugh. The conviction itself was upheld.

Bigby was still guilty of capital murder, but the sentence was thrown out, and a new sentencing hearing was ordered. In September 2006, a second jury was impaneled in Tarrant County to decide whether James Bigby should receive the death penalty or life in prison. The defense repeated their arguments about mental illness.

 They brought in experts who testified that Bigby was a different person after spending 15 years on death row, that he had stabilized, that he was no longer the paranoid and delusional man who had killed four people in 1987. Defense attorney Wes Ball told the jury that Bigby had seen the devil twice during his original trial, evidence of how severe his psychosis had been.

But the prosecution reminded the jury of the facts, four people dead, a baby drowned in a sink, a man shot in the back of the head while preparing dinner. Two other men executed because of paranoid delusions, and a defendant who had grabbed a gun and held a judge at gunpoint during his own trial. The second jury deliberated and returned with the same verdict as the first, death.

In October 2008, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the second death sentence. In 2015, the United States Supreme Court refused to review the case. All appeals were exhausted. Looking back years later, defense attorney Wes Ball would say, “I don’t think anyone in the courtroom claimed he wasn’t mentally ill, but there were too many dead people and a dead baby, and going up and getting the judge’s gun out of his drawer in court, and going at him, that’s kind of the icing on the cake moment.

” In October 2016, prosecutors requested an execution date for James Bigby. His attorney asked for additional time, reporting that Bigby had been uncooperative and uncommunicative, making it impossible to rationally evaluate his state of mind. But on October 27th, 2016, the attorney filed a report stating there was no need for a mental examination.

“Bigby understands the reason for his execution,” the report said. Days later, an execution warrant was signed. James Bigby would be executed on March 14th, 2017. It was the first execution date Bigby had ever received, uh despite spending 26 years on death row. Attorney John Stickels told reporters, “I believe that Bigby is resigned to the fact that he’s going to be executed, and I think he wants it over with.

” Bigby had requested that no last-minute appeals be filed on his behalf. He wanted to ensure that nothing would stop his execution from proceeding. In the days leading up to the execution, Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark said that Bigby was struggling to control his emotions and was trying to keep from sobbing.

He had written a letter to Grace Keeler apologizing for killing her son and her boyfriend. In the letter, Bigby told her he had tried to drop his appeals earlier. Then, he said something bizarre. He blamed Frito-Lay for his actions, uh writing that the company had caused his actions and they alone were to blame for what he did.

He insisted it was not about money and claimed that attempts to kill him had followed when he refused to settle or drop his legal suit. Even after 26 years in prison, even on the verge of execution, James Bigby still clung to his paranoid delusions. March 14th, 2017. James Bigby’s final day on Earth. He woke knowing that in a few hours, he would be dead.

There is no public record of what James Bigby ate for his last meal. In 2011, Texas stopped releasing information about condemned inmates final meals after a controversy involving Lawrence Russell Brewer, who requested an enormous last meal and then refused to eat any of it. Since then, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice has kept last meal requests private.

Whatever Bigby ate that day, he he ate alone in his cell knowing it was the last food he would ever taste. At 6:00 p.m., Bigby was escorted from his holding cell to the execution chamber at the Huntsville unit, also known as the Walls unit. The walk from cell to chamber is short, just a few steps. But for the condemned, it must feel like miles.

Six relatives of Bigby’s victims gathered in the witness room. Among them was Grace Caylor, the woman who had found her boyfriend shot dead at the kitchen table and her baby drowned in a sink nearly 30 years earlier. Also present were family members of Calvin Crane and Frank Johnson, the two men Bigby had murdered but was never tried for killing.

They had waited decades for this moment. James Bigby had no witnesses present on his behalf, no family members, no friends, no spiritual advisers. He would die alone and watched only by the people whose lives he had destroyed. Bigby was strapped to a gurney, his arms extended, IV lines inserted into his veins.

The drug that would kill him was pentobarbital, a barbiturate that acts as a sedative. In high doses, it renders the condemned unconscious, stops their breathing, and stops their heart. At 6:17 p.m., the warden gave the signal and the injection began. Before the drug took full effect, Bigby was given the opportunity to make a final statement.

He turned his head toward the witness window, his voice cracking with emotion, and he spoke. Yes, I do. Grace Cayler, is that you? I have given Warden Jones a written statement that will explain a lot more. I hope this will bring you closure and answers to some questions. I hope this will bring you peace, and I’m sorry for all the pain and suffering.

I’m sorry it went on for a terribly long time. I’m sorry to you, especially Grace Cayler. To the Cayler, Johnson, and Crane family, I pray that you won’t hate Jesus. The letter will explain more. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I hope that my death will bring you peace and closure. I pray that maybe someday will bring you peace.

I hope that you could forgive me, but if you don’t, I understand. I don’t think I could forgive anyone who would have killed my children. I’m sorry for your suffering you’ve had for a long time. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. As the pentobarbital began to take effect, Bigby continued to speak. He prayed aloud, his words becoming quieter, more difficult to hear.

“I promise,” he said. “I’m sorry. I promise. I’m sorry.” And then, as the drug flowed through his veins and his body began to shut down, James Bigby started to sing. “Jesus loves me. Nay, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” His voice was weak, barely a whisper, but the witnesses could hear him singing the children’s hymn.

“Jesus loves me, this I know.” He took a few more breaths, the singing stopped. Bigby began to snore, a common reaction as the pentobarbital shuts down the respiratory system. Then, all movement ceased. His chest stopped rising, his body went still. At 6:31 p.m., 14 minutes after the injection began, James Eugene Bigby was pronounced dead. He was 61 years old.

After 26 years on death row, justice had been served. Later that evening, Deborah Treckel Jamison, Michael Treckel’s sister and Jason Caylor’s aunt, released a statement. “I witnessed Bigby’s death not to judge him, but to support the completion of what James Bigby began with my family almost 30 years ago when he committed such a heinous crime.

This day will be yet another remembrance in the history that was forever changed by James Bigby for our families.” James Bigby was the fourth person executed in Texas in 2017 and the sixth person executed nationwide that year. Only Texas, Virginia and Missouri had carried out executions in 2017. Bigby was the 542nd person executed in Texas since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 and the second execution from Tarrant County that year.

Tarrant County prosecutors explained that there had been an uptick in scheduled executions from the county because cases had been delayed while a review of capital cases and DNA analysis was conducted. The backlog was now being cleared. The execution of James Bigby raises difficult questions about mental illness and the death penalty.

 Two juries are presented with extensive evidence of Bigby’s paranoid schizophrenia decided that his mental illness was not sufficient to spare him from execution. Dr. James Grigson, an expert who had helped send dozens of men to death row, testified that Bigby did not know right from wrong when he committed the murders. But the juries rejected that argument.

They looked at the evidence, they heard the testimony and they concluded that James Bigby deserved to die. Some people argue that executing someone with severe mental illness is cruel and immoral. In 2017, Texas State Representative Tony Rose filed House Bill 3080, which would have prevented offenders proven to have severe mental illness at the time of their crime from being sentenced to death.

 The bill did not pass. Our Texas law allows mentally ill convicts to be executed as long as they understand the reason for their punishment. Defense attorney Wes Ball, looking back on the case years later, acknowledged the complexity. “I don’t think anyone in the courtroom claimed he wasn’t mentally ill,” he said, “but there were too many dead people and a dead baby.

And going up and getting the judge’s gun out of his drawer in court and going at him is kind of the icing on the cake moment.” The courtroom gun incident had a profound impact on how the jury viewed Bigby. It wasn’t just that he had killed four people. It was that he had shown a continued willingness to use violence to get what he wanted.

Even in the middle of his own trial, facing the possibility of execution, Bigby grabbed a gun and threatened a judge. That action, more than anything else, convinced the juries that he was dangerous and would remain dangerous for the rest of his life. What is clear is that four people should still be alive. Michael Trejo, a 26-year-old man trying to build a life with his girlfriend, should have grown old, raised children, experienced all the joys and sorrows of a full life.

Jason Keeler, a 4-month-old baby, should have taken his first steps, spoken his first words, gone to school, fallen in love, lived. Calvin Crane and Frank Johnson, men with families and friends who loved them, should have celebrated many more Christmases. Instead, they were all murdered by a man whose paranoid delusions convinced him that his friends were conspiring against him.

A man who believed killing them was justified. Grace Caylor, who lost both her boyfriend and her infant son on the same night, had had to live with that horror for 30 years before she saw James Bigby executed. She found Michael’s body slumped over the kitchen table. She found Jason face down in a sink full of water.

Those images haunted her for three decades. When Bigby spoke to her from the gurney, apologizing, asking for forgiveness, she listened. Whether she forgave him, whether his execution brought her peace, only she knows. Deborah Treckel Jameson, Michael’s sister, said she witnessed the execution not to judge Bigby, but to support the completion of what he had started.

For the families of the victims, Bigby’s death was not about revenge. It was about closure. It was about finally being able to move forward after nearly 30 years of waiting, of appeals, of delays, and of seeing the man who destroyed their families continue to live while their loved ones remained dead.

 James Bigby spent 26 years on death row, longer than many condemned inmates. During that time, he had two full trials, countless appeals, and a trip to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that temporarily saved his life. He had more legal process than most death row inmates ever receive. And in the end, two separate juries looked at all the evidence and reached the same conclusion.

Death. On March 14th, 2017, at 6:31 p.m., James Eugene Bigby took his last breath. His final words were apologies. His final act was singing a children’s hymn about Jesus. Whether he found redemption in those final moments, whether he made peace with what he had done, is impossible to say. What we know is that he killed four people in a paranoid rage over a worker’s compensation claim that no one was actually conspiring to thwart.

 We know he drowned a baby in a sink. We know he shot men in the back of the head, execution style. We know he grabbed a gun during his own trial and threatened a judge. And we know that after 26 years, the state of Texas decided he had lived long enough. The case of James Eugene Bigby is now closed.

 A brutal killing spree on Christmas Eve 1987. Four people dead, a baby drowned, a SWAT standoff, a shocking courtroom incident, two death sentences from two different juries. And finally, on a Tuesday evening in March 2017, a needle in the arm and a song about Jesus. Justice, such as it is, was served.