Death Row Inmate Trottie Executed for 1993 Murders

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Updated, 7:31 p.m.:

Texas death row inmate Willie Tyrone Trottie was executed by lethal injection Wednesday evening in Huntsville for the 1993 murders of his ex-girlfriend and her brother.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark confirmed that Trottie, 45, was injected with pentobarbital and pronounced dead at 6:35 p.m. for the 1993 murders of Barbara Nell Canada, 24, and her brother, Titus Canada, 29.

Trottie asked for forgiveness before he received the lethal injection.

"I love you all," Trottie said, according to a statement released by TDCJ officials.  Find it in your hearts to forgive me. I'm sorry, stay strong. Jesus take me home."

The Associated Press reported that after about eight breaths, Trottie opened his mouth to exhale, closed it and then made no further movement. He died 22 minutes after the lethal dose was administered.

Trottie became the eighth inmate to die by lethal injection this year in Texas and the 516th since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1982. 

Original story:

A Texas death row inmate who fatally shot his estranged girlfriend and her brother in 1993 is scheduled to be executed Wednesday night in Huntsville.

Willie Tyrone Trottie, a former delivery man and security guard who turned 45 this week, was convicted of the May 3, 1993 murder of Barbara Nell Canada, 24, and her brother, Titus Canada, 29.

If carried out as scheduled, Trottie will become the eighth inmate to die by lethal injection this year in Texas and the 516th since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1982. 

Trottie became estranged from Barbara, his longtime girlfriend, in late 1992. Prosecutors later argued at Trottie's capital murder trial that he threatened to kill her if she didn't return to him — and that she took out a protective order against him in March 1993.

Two months later, Trottie kicked in the door to Barbara's mother's home in Houston and shot his ex-girlfriend 11 times with a 9 mm handgun before turning the gun on her brother, Titus. He also wounded their mother and sister.

Trottie explained in a letter sent last May to the website Gawker that he was raised by an abusive and alcoholic mother and that he and his three siblings were eventually sent to foster care. He wrote that he was "rescued" by his father who raised him in Louisiana.

As for his current fate, Trottie wrote that "my faith in God is still strong. Whatever HIS WILL, I'll be content with that."

Trottie has two appeals still pending. In one he claims his lawyer at the time, Connie B. Williams, did not give him proper representation. That appeal claims Williams met with Trottie only twice before the day of trial, for less than an hour total. 

"That’s not true, we met with him on many occasions," Williams told The Texas Tribune. "My position always is if someone points out that I was ineffective I will take the blame, but that is not true."

On Tuesday, another appeal was filed claiming the pharmacy-compounded drugs the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) intends to use for Trottie's lethal injection were expired and had not been tested for sterility or potency in six months.

That appeal, filed by lawyers Maurie Levin of Philadelphia and Jonathan Ross of Houston, alleged that the drugs could violate Trottie's 8th Amendment right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment because they could cause a "tortuous" death. 

But TDCJ spokesman Jason Clark countered that the two 2.5-gram vials of pentobarbital expected to be used to execute Trottie at 6 p.m. on Wednesday have a "by use date" of Sept. 30. Two backup vials of pentobarbital have a "by use date" of Oct. 31.

"The drugs have been tested for potency and defect," Clark said. "The drugs have a potency of 108 percent and were found to have no defects."

Trottie's appeal on the compounded lethal drug issue was rejected by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans and his lawyers filed a request Wednesday afternoon for the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.

Earlier this week, as Trottie's father, Willie Trottie Sr., began preparing to leave his home in Louisiana to visit with his son one last time before his execution, he talked about the "kind, loving" child he knew and acknowledged he had to pay for the crime.

"I hate that it happened. I didn’t think he would do something like that," the elder Trottie said. "You do something wrong, you have to pay the price. The consequence. He did something wrong, and he had to pay for what he did wrong." 

_{*Editor's note: An earlier version of this story contained an incorrect middle name for Willie Tyrone Trottie.}