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Wednesday, April 30, 1997

Career criminal executed for double killing

By MICHAEL GRACZYK Associated Press Writer

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) - A career criminal who graduated from burglary to forgery to murder was executed Tuesday for killing a Navarro County couple nearly 11 years ago.

Ernest Orville Baldree, 55, was pronounced dead at 6:25 p.m. CDT, seven minutes after a lethal dose of drugs began flowing into his arms.

Asked if he had a final statement, Baldree looked at warden Morris Jones and said, "No, sir." When the drugs were started, he closed his eyes and gasped a couple times before he stopped breathing.

Baldree requested no personal witnesses to the execution.

He was condemned for shooting Homer Howard in the head Aug. 20, 1986, while helping the man build a fence at his home near Coolidge, northeast of Waco.

A jury also found Baldree then walked into the Howards' trailer home and fatally shot the man's wife, Nancy.

Baldree, a seventh-grade dropout, was the sixth convicted killer to be put to death in Texas this month and the eighth this year.

The six executions in April are the most ever in a single month for Texas, which leads the nation by far in carrying out capital punishment.

Final appeals for Baldree were resolved last week when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review his case and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest criminal court, rejected a challenge to the setting of Baldree's execution date.

At the time of the fatal shootings, Baldree had been on parole for about four months after serving 20 months of a 10-year term for gun and drug possession and theft.

The prison term was the latest of a string of convictions that began in Dallas for a 1960 burglary. Other convictions got him prison time for theft, burglary and forgery, mostly in the Dallas, Denton and Tarrant counties area.

"This guy had been to the pen, he had a drug addiction," Navarro County District Attorney Patrick Batchelor, who prosecuted Baldree, said. "These people were just tremendously nice people, too nice for their own good.

"They knew (his history) and were trying to help him out. And then he turns on them and kills them."

From his first conviction in Dallas in February 1960 to the time of his arrest for the 1986 Howard killings, it was estimated Baldree spent no more than two years out of jail. He had 13 convictions.

After shooting each of his victims, who were related to him by marriage, he robbed both of jewelry and money and drove off in the couple's 1979 white Cadillac.

Two weeks later, he was arrested at a motel in Arlington, about 75 miles to the north, and another week later, he confessed to police.

Baldree had been living nearby with one of his sisters and her husband, who were related to the Howards. The Howards had convinced Baldree they could use his help in putting up a fence and had picked him up the day they were killed.

A relative of the Howards became concerned when he didn't hear from them and went to their home where he found Mrs. Howard's body on the kitchen floor. She had been shot in the head, chest and neck.

Her husband's body, in a kneeling position near his pickup truck, was found about 200 yards away. He had been shot once in the head.

Police found the murder weapon, a .22-caliber rifle, that had been given by Baldree to a friend for disposal. They also recovered rings and watches that had been taken from the victims and sold by Baldree for about $600.

Prosecutors said he used the money to buy drugs. Send a Letter to the Editor about This Story | Start or Join A Discussion about This Story
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