In late 1990, Ben Murray, the Sheriff of Dimmit County, was investigating a burglary case. The Sheriff met with Jose Garcia Briseno to enlist his help in solving the burglaries. Several weeks later, on Sunday, January 6, 1991, Ben was found dead in his home, with numerous stab wounds and a bullet wound to the head. At trial, testimony revealed that over five hundred dollars in cash had been taken from Ben. Additionally, two of his pistols were missing. When Briseno was arrested, he had bandages on both hands. He told police that he had received the cuts in a fight on the previous Friday. While being held, he attempted to escape with several other inmates. After their capture, one of the other inmates told authorities statements Briseno made about the Sheriff's murder. He testified that on the night of Ben's murder, Briseno and another defendant, Alberto Gonzales, appeared at Ben's home offering to sell some rings. Briseno and Gonzales did not have any rings for sale, but used the ring story to gain entry to Ben's home. A struggle began, and they stabbed Ben Murray. When Briseno and Gonzales could not take Ben down, Briseno grabbed Ben's gun off a table and shot Ben. Afterwards, Briseno and Gonzales stole some money from Ben's home and hid it. Basaldua also testified that during the escape Briseno showed him the spot where Briseno had buried the gun used to kill Ben. Briseno dug up the gun but soon disposed of it in the same general area before the police caught the escapees. Upon being recaptured, Basaldua led the officers to the location where Briseno had hidden the gun, and the gun was recovered. At trial, the state introduced evidence demonstrating that blood taken from Ben's carpet compared positively with that of Briseno. The state's serologist testified that the enzyme markers found in the blood are shared by Briseno and a little more than one percent of the Hispanic population in the United States. Additional evidence submitted at trial included bloody clothing that was found behind a sofa in a shed in which Briseno had been staying. That clothing contained enzyme markers consistent with Briseno's and Ben's. Furthermore, a bullet of the same caliber and brand as that used in the stolen pistol utilized to kill Ben was discovered at the shed. Moreover, a bloodhound tracked a lighter found near Ben's residence to the shed where Briseno had been staying. A jury convicted Briseno of Sheriff Murray's murder and sentenced him to death. Sheriff Murray had served as Sheriff for almost 20 years and was survived by his wife and three children. 

Frank Moore was sentenced to death for the January 21, 1994 shooting deaths of Samuel Boyd and Patrick Clark. Moore's first death sentence was set aside by an appeals court, and he was again sentenced to death by a second jury. Moore shot and killed two individuals after an altercation in the parking lot of the Wheels of Joy Club in San Antonio, Texas, around 2:00 a.m. on January 21, 1994. The persons killed were Samuel Boyd, 23-years old, and Patrick Clark, 15-years old. The first peace officer on the scene found Boyd dead or dying in the passenger seat of an automobile and Clark lying dead next to the driver's door. An investigator found shell casings in a location that suggested that the shots were fired from the left rear of the vehicle. This evidence comported with the deputy medical examiner's testimony that the tracks of the bullet wounds were generally from back to front and left to right. Boyd had been wounded by six bullets and Clark by five. Boyd's blood contained 0.28 grams per deciliter of ethanol alcohol. Clark's blood contained 0.15 grams per deciliter of ethanol, as well as 0.25 milligrams per liter of diazepam and 0.33 milligrams per liter of nordiazepam. In the opinion of the medical expert, the latter two controlled substances are muscle relaxants. Both victims were acutely intoxicated at the times of their deaths. The State called Angela Wallace, who lived in Houston and was visiting San Antonio to attend the funeral of her uncle. Prior to the night of the shootings, Wallace did not know anyone involved in the offense. She testified that she and a friend, Lisa, had gone to an icehouse across from the Wheels of Joy Club. Lisa was Boyd's girlfriend. Boyd met Lisa at the icehouse and the two verbally argued. Wallace left her friend and walked to the Wheels of Joy where she spent several hours in the nightclub; Boyd entered the club after Wallace and told her that Lisa had gone home. During the evening, Wallace saw Moore in the club and at one time Moore and Boyd shook hands and the two spoke and laughed. She also saw Clark in the club but did not see him have any contact with the Moore. Wallace testified that she did not see Boyd or Clark acting drunk or argumentative. Throughout the evening, Moore came and spoke to Wallace and flirted with her. At one point, Wallace observed two women with Moore look at her strangely and she momentarily left the club to deposit her jewelry in her car. As the club prepared to close, Moore asked Wallace to save him the last dance and to give him her telephone number. Wallace refused to give Moore her number, but he offered to give his to her. As the club was closing, Moore was interrupted by a man who stopped and whispered to him; the two men then left the club. Wallace identified this other man from photographs as Ivory Sheffield. When the club closed, Wallace left and went to the parking lot. She testified that Moore, Boyd, Clark, and another man "had a confrontation . . . an exchange of words and someone pushed somebody. . . . It just broke up. Just everybody started scattering a little bit." Wallace saw Clark's car come into the parking lot and stop. She stated that the car did not come close to striking the Moore and it did not back up. While Boyd must have at some point gotten into Clark's car, Wallace did not see him do so. Wallace testified that she saw the Moore walk towards the back of Clark's car. Sheffield got a rifle from the trunk of a Cadillac and tossed it to Moore, who started shooting into Clark's car. Moore handed the gun back to Sheffield and left in a Cadillac. Sheffield said, "Who else wants some of this?" and walked around with the gun. Wallace left the crime scene with an individual named Edmond to notify the family of Boyd and Clark. At the second trial, Moore called Robert Mays, Jr. whose testimony contradicted that of Wallace. Mays, a friend of Moore, was at the Wheels of Joy Club on the night of the shootings. Mays did not know the victims but did observe a scuffle outside the club around closing time. Someone yelled they were going to get their stuff (meaning guns) and two or three males ran across the street and got into a white car. Mays also testified they were going to shoot him. They had guns in the car and the white car came across the street into the parking lot at a high rate of speed and tried to run over Mays and others, including Moore, who tried to get out of the way. The car hit some bushes preventing it from striking Mays, and the car backed up and tried to come back at Mays. Mays made a quick getaway and heard shots as he fled the scene.

Reginald Perkins was sent to death row for the slaying of his stepmother Gertie Mae Perkins in Fort Worth on December 4, 2000. The 64-year-old woman's body was found in the trunk of her car in a parking garage. A Tarrant County jury took just 30 minutes in 2002 to decide Reginald Perkins should be put to death. Shortly after the jury's verdict was read in court, Perkins proclaimed his innocence in a written letter read by his lawyer. In November 2007, a federal appeals court rejected claims he was mentally retarded and ineligible for the death penalty, that his legal help earlier had been ineffective, that the Texas sentencing statute was unconstitutional and that he was innocent of the murder. In May of 2008, the US Supreme Court refused to review that appeal. Evidence at his trial showed he pawned his stepmother's wedding ring and wrote fraudulent checks from the account of the family trucking business in Fort Worth. When Gertie Perkins showed up missing, police summoned to her home found a carpet removed, a phone cord disconnected and sheets missing from a bed. He became a suspect after detectives learned of his previous convictions in Ohio for rape and attempted rape and that he had been a suspect in two killings in Cleveland in the 1980s. When arrested, he directed his father and police to the body. Perkins also acknowledged the slaying to a fellow inmate while awaiting trial and said his motive was robbery. At the punishment phase of his trial, jurors heard testimony that he pleaded guilty to rape and attempted rape of two 12-year-old girls in 1982 and that he had been implicated in the strangulation of two women. One of them was the mother of the girl he raped. The other was the sister of his ex-wife. In 1986, he had been paroled from Ohio after receiving a life prison term for the rape conviction. He was returned from parole eight years later but released again in February 2000. His stepmother's murder occurred 10 months later.