Man executed for 2000 crime spree

Posted Thursday, Mar. 11, 2010

By MICHAEL GRACZYK

The Associated Press

HUNTSVILLE -- His voice breaking and choking back tears, Joshua Maxwell apologized repeatedly Thursday night for killing two men, including a Bexar County sheriff's officer, during cross-country crime spree with his girlfriend a decade ago.

"The person that did that 10 years ago isn't the same person you see today," he said moments before lethal drugs began flowing. "I hurt a lot of people with decisions I made. I can't be more sorry than I am right now."

Maxwell, 31, told relatives of the victims that he'd "put you through some things that I can't take back."

But he said his execution was "creating more victims."

"This is not going to change anything," he said.

He was pronounced dead at 6:27 p.m., the fourth Texas inmate executed this year. At least 10 Texas Death Row inmates have execution dates in the coming months.

No late court appeals were filed for Maxwell.

In late 2000, Maxwell and his girlfriend, Tessie McFarland, started a crime spree in Indiana with the robbery and slaying of Robby Bott, 45, a FedEx mechanic.

A month later in San Antonio, they killed sheriff's Sgt. Rudy Lopes, 45, who was off-duty at the time. Lopes' bound and blindfolded body was dumped behind a shopping mall.

"Absolutely cold-blooded murders," Jim Kopp, the Bexar County assistant district attorney who prosecuted Maxwell, recalled this week.

Maxwell and McFarland were arrested after a chase and running gunbattle with police through downtown San Francisco. Maxwell, driving Lopes' stolen truck, refused to pull over after running a red light.

McFarland, a former stripper, was wounded during the chase. Lopes' credit card, badge and service weapon were recovered from the truck, along with a Chinese-made 9 mm pistol that was used to shoot him in the head.

McFarland, 30, is serving a life prison term in Texas after pleading guilty to Lopes' slaying. In Indiana, she pled guilty to confinement and arson as part of a plea deal.

Maxwell was sentenced to death in Texas in Lopes' killing, and in Indiana, he was convicted of murder and other charges in Bott's slaying.

Maxwell told The San Antonio Express-News recently that he committed a number of robberies during the couple's trek from Indiana to Florida, Texas and California, cases that are still open..

Bott's parents joined three relatives of Lopes as witnesses in the Texas death chamber Thursday. Maxwell's son, mother and half-sister watched through a window in an adjacent room.

After Maxwell was pronounced dead, Shirley Bott turned to a state official accompanying her and showed a heart-shaped locket she wore on a chain around her neck.

"I have my son's ashes in here," she said. "I wanted him to be here."

From: http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/03/11/2034027/man-executed-for-2000-crime-spree.html