Tommie Hughes

Tom Andrew Hughes (or Tommie as he was known) (August 15, 1974 – March 15, 2006) was a convicted murderer. He was convicted of the August 13, 1997 murder of 25-year-old Foluke Erinkitola in Northwest Dallas, Texas. Roxanne Mendoza, 29, was also killed in the crime. He was executed by lethal injection.

He served in the United States Marine Corps and received a bad-conduct discharge after being convicted by a special court-martial in June 1994 of a drug offense and possessing false ID.

During the evening of August 13, 1997, undercover officers noticed Hughes and his partner, Michael English, as the two walked through the parking lot toward the theater building. Approximately ten minutes later, both men were observed walking quickly back toward their car, a Mercury Tracer. Hughes was twenty to thirty feet behind English. English appeared to be hunched over, concealing what was described as a "large bulge" beneath his shirt. This "bulge" had not been observed earlier.

After both men entered the car, the driver, later found to be Alina T. Henry, his former girlfriend, who had never left the vehicle, quickly accelerated, exiting the parking lot at high speed, and continued onto the highway reaching speeds of ninety miles an hour. While one of the undercover police officers followed the car in an unmarked vehicle, the other went to investigate the parking lot for signs of a burglary. Shortly thereafter, the bodies of two women were found. Hughes and the other two were arrested shortly afterwards at an Oak Cliff, Texas service station.

At the trial, witnesses from as far away as California testified to his prior criminal behavior. Lawmen from San Bernardino County Sheriffs’ Department and Colton Police Department testified. Hughes was sentenced to death by a jury on May 7, 1998.

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