Derrick O'Brien

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Derrick Sean O'Brien (April 5, 1975 – July 11, 2006) was a convicted murderer who was executed by lethal injection in the State of Texas.

O'Brien was 18 when, as one of six members of a Houston street gang, was convicted for the killings of Elizabeth Peña, 16, and Jennifer Ertman, 14. The two girls, who attended Waltrip High School, had been attacked as they took a shortcut along railroad tracks and stumbled on their soon to be murderers drinking beer after initiating a new gang member. Before being killed the girls were raped and tortured. Their bodies were found four days later. ^[1]

O'Brien, 31, was due to be executed on May 16, 2006, when his lawyers won a reprieve from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals the day before the execution was scheduled. Days later, the same court lifted its earlier order and cleared the way for his execution.

On July 11, 2006 his lawyers again tried to get a stay of execution, with an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. This was rejected about a half an hour before he was scheduled to die. O'Brien's lawyers had unsuccessfully argued, that no legal procedure existed to allow condemned Texas prisoners, to raise challenges that drugs used in lethal injections cause "unnecessary, excessive, and caused excruciating pain,".

In his final statement, O'Brien, raised his head from the death chamber gurney and repeatedly said he was sorry to the murdered girls' families. ^[2] Derrick O'Brien's last words.