At 44 executions and three more on the schedule, 2025 is on track to be the deadliest year on American death rows in more than a decade.
Texas has, by far, led the nation in executions since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. More than 150 others reside in the Allan B. Polunsky unit in Livingston, awaiting news on appeals, new trials and execution dates.
These are the Dallas County men — and woman — on death row, as told by previous reporting from The Dallas Morning News.
Kristopher Love, 41
Kristopher Love was sentenced to die in 2018 for serving as the hitman in a murder-for-hire plot against an Uptown dentist. The 41-year-old has been on death row for seven years.
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Love, then 34, ambushed and fatally shot 35-year-old Kendra Hatcher in September 2015 in the parking garage of her apartment complex.
Kristopher Love was the hit man in a murder-for-hire plot targeting pediatric dentist Kendra Hatcher.
Ashley Landis / Staff Photographer
At trial, the defense painted Love as a model inmate and beloved father of three. They argued he was merely the “instrument” for a woman who was reportedly jealous of Hatcher’s relationship with her ex-boyfriend.
Prosecutors, however, called Love a “cold-blooded, evil assassin” and a career criminal who had been getting in trouble since he stole a car as a teenager. Despite the defense’s interpretation, they stated Hatcher’s death wouldn’t have happened unless Love agreed to kill her.
Franklin Davis, 43
Franklin Davis was sentenced to death in 2013 for killing a 16-year-old girl who accused him of rape. The 43-year-old has been on death row for 12 years.
Davis, then 30, admitted to shooting Shania Gray, who babysat his children, in September 2012 at an Irving park after picking her up from school. He then stepped on her throat to cut off her breathing.
Phillip Hayes, left, one of the defense attorneys for Franklin Davis takes a break at the Frank Crowley Courts building on Nov. 12, 2013. Davis is on trail for the shooting and killing of 16-year-old Shania Gray of Carrollton.
David Woo / Staff Photographer
At trial, Davis said he killed Shania to ensure she couldn’t testify against him, stating she “ruined” his life.
Defense attorneys said Davis would have been better off “being raised by wolves,” explaining he had been molested by his siblings and grandfather and neglected by his mother, who was raped and murdered in 1997. Prosecutors pointed to a violent past, presenting evidence of multiple assaults on women and a brief escape from Dallas County custody in which a deputy was injured.
Naim Muhammad, 46
Naim Muhammad was sentenced to death in 2013 for killing two of his young children, 5-year-old Naim and 3-year-old Elijah. The 46-year-old has been on death row for 12 years.
Muhammad, then 32, was convicted of abducting the boys and their mother in 2011 as they walked to school on Naim’s first day of kindergarten. When the mother escaped, Muhammad testified that he took his sons to a shallow creek and held their heads underwater to get back at their mother for ending their relationship.
A photo displayed at the funeral services for Elijah Muhammad, 3, and Naim Muhammad, 5 and at Inspiring Body of Christ in Dallas on Aug. 27, 2011. Their father was later sentenced to death for drowning them in a putrid creek
Staff / File Photo
Defense attorneys asked the jury to spare Muhammad’s life because he was exposed to frequent violence and drugs during his childhood, including “routine physical and emotional abuse,” neglect and criminality.
As recently as December 2024, court records show Muhammad has raised issues with federal and state courts that he cannot be executed because of his impaired intellectual and adaptive functioning. Muhammad alleged that his mother drank heavily during pregnancy, damaging his brain.
During his school years, the filing said Muhammad had difficulty processing information. At 33, his math and reading skills were those of a fourth grader.
Tyrone Cade, 52
Tyrone Cade was sentenced to death in 2012 for stabbing his girlfriend and her teenage daughter in a fit of rage and jealousy. The 52-year-old has been on death row for 13 years.
Cade told police he stabbed Mischell Fuller, 37, and Desaree Hoskins, 18, dozens of times in their Irving home in March 2011 after secretly recording Fuller having a “provocative conversation” with her ex-husband.
Tyrone Cade (second from right) received the death penalty despite his lawyers’ request that jurors show mercy because of his background. They said he came from a broken home, had a low IQ and suffered constant back pain from a football injury.
Mona Reeder – Staff Photographer
Cade also raped Fuller before killing her, he said.
Prosecutors called Cade a manipulator and “an evil capital murderer who will be a threat every day for the rest of his life.” Defense attorneys said Cade’s background — a broken home, an allegation of sexual abuse by his mother, low IQ, depression and constant back pain from a football injury — were enough to warrant mercy in his sentencing.
Roderick Harris, 41
Roderick Harris was sentenced to death in 2012 for killing brothers Alfredo and Carlos Gallardo during a robbery in southeast Dallas. The 41-year-old has been on death row for 13 years.
In 2009, Harris reportedly stormed into the family’s trailer and demanded cash, jewelry and drugs. The family, which included three children, gave him what they had — $2, a ring and a necklace.
Harris then ordered them into a bathroom closet. He later pulled out Alfredo, 45, who shoved Harris into the bathtub before falling on top of him. Harris shot him twice before shooting Carlos, 36, when he tried to help his brother.
Harris was arrested following a shootout with police as he attempted to leave the home. He was struck twice; no officers were injured.
Harris was only tried and convicted in the death of Alfredo. At trial, defense attorneys argued that Alfredo was shot during a struggle over the gun, while prosecutors said the fact he was shot in the head and the chest left no room for doubt regarding his intentions.
James Broadnax, 37
James Broadnax was convicted in 2009 for killing Christian music producer Stephen Swan, 26, outside the Zion Gate studio in Garland in June 2008. He was also charged in connection with the slaying of the studio’s owner, Matthew Butler, 28. The 37-year-old has been on death row for 16 years.
Broadnax and an accomplice also robbed Swan and Butler, leaving them with $2 in cash and a 1995 Ford.
“I murdered them both,” Broadnax, then 19, told reporters at the time. “No hesitation or nothing.”
The defense examined whether the confessions given to the media or Broadnax’s actions were intentional because he had used marijuana laced with PCP and embalming fluid. A prosecutor countered that Broadnax knew what he was doing, and sounded “proud” in the interviews.
Patrick Murphy, 64
Patrick Murphy was part of the Texas Seven. The 64-year-old has been on death row for 22 years.
Prison inmates Joseph C. Garcia, Randy Ethan Halprin, Larry James Harper, Patrick Henry Murphy Jr., Donald Keith Newbury, George Rivas and Michael Anthony Rodriguez escaped Dec. 13, 2000, from the prison near Kenedy. They killed Irving Officer Aubrey Hawkins, 31, during a sporting goods store robbery.
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The Texas Seven are a group of seven prisoners who escaped on Dec. 13, 2000, from the John B. Connally Unit in South Texas. The group committed several robberies throughout the state, including one on Christmas Eve at a sporting goods store in Irving, in which responding police officer Aubrey Hawkins was killed after he was shot 11 times and run over.
Between Jan. 22 and Jan. 24, 2001, six of the seven men, including Murphy, were taken into custody in Colorado. The seventh killed himself before he could be arrested.
Patrick Murphy listens to a jury pass down the death penalty for his part in the murder of an Irving Police Officer at the 283rd District Court in the Frank Crowley Criminal Courts in Dallas on November 20, 2003.
Matt Rourke / 193510
According to court documents, Murphy was the lookout during the robbery and listened to a police scanner from a car in the store’s parking lot. Murphy was convicted under Texas’ law of parties, which allows for accomplices to face the same charges as the person who caused the fatality.
Murphy, a Buddhist, was previously scheduled to be executed twice in 2019, but both dates were stayed over appeals pertaining to his religious rights.
Four other members of the group have been executed, making Murphy one of two survivors.
Randy Halprin, 48
Randy Halprin is the second of the Texas Seven survivors. The 48-year-old has been on death row for 22 years.
Halprin has said he didn’t fire his gun during the Christmas Eve shooting, and was also convicted and sentenced to death based on Texas’ law of parties.
(From left) Defense attorney Phillip Hayes sits with Texas Seven member Randy Halprin during a hearing with 283rd state District Judge Lela Lawrence Mays (not pictured) at the Frank Crowley Courts Building in Dallas on Friday, March 7, 2025.
Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer
Halprin was also previously scheduled to be executed in 2019, but the date was stayed over allegations that the judge who presided over his 2003 capital murder trial was prejudiced against him.
In November 2024, the state’s highest criminal appeals court agreed that judge harbored antisemitic views and granted Halprin, who is Jewish, a new trial.
His trial has been scheduled for April 2027.
Charles Flores, 56
Charles Flores was convicted in 1999 for the death of 64-year-old Elizabeth Black at her Farmers Branch home in January 1998. The 56-year-old has been on death row for 26 years.
Two men reportedly robbed Black because they believed she had about $40,000 in cash — drug money they’d heard about through her daughter-in-law. But after shooting Black and her dog, the pair came up empty.
After the slaying, neighbors told police they had seen two white men with long hair and medium builds get out of the VW bug. Flores is a heavy-set Hispanic man with short hair.
Charles Don Flores’ mugshot bears little resemblance to a sketch based on an eyewitness’s description given shortly after the murder.
The key witness and Black’s next-door neighbor, Jill Barganier, picked Richard Childs out of a photo lineup, but not Flores. She then asked Farmers Branch police to hypnotize her to help with her anxiety, hoping it would make it easier to remember what she saw that morning through her blinds. After the interview, she again did not pick Flores’ photo out of a lineup.
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Barganier identified Flores for the first time at trial, more than a year later.
Defense attorneys argued then that Childs was the sole shooter. Childs struck a deal and pleaded guilty to murder. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison, but was released on parole in 2016 after serving 17.
As of 2023, a state law prohibits statements obtained through investigative hypnosis from being used as evidence in criminal trials.
Darlie Routier, 55
Darlie Routier was condemned for fatally stabbing her sons, Devon, 6, and Damon, 5. The 55-year-old has been on death row for 28 years.
The morning of June 6, 1996, Rowlett police received a 911 call from Routier saying someone in dark clothing had broken into her home and attacked her sons. Routier also had stab wounds on her neck and upper body.
Darlie Routier and her sons (from left) Damon, Drake and Devon.
File Photo
Routier was later arrested and charged with capital murder when investigators found her account of the attack didn’t match evidence from the scene. For instance, Routier said the assailant escaped through a garage window, but the window was still covered in dust and the mulch covering the ground below was untouched. Police also said there were no blood splatters where Routier said she found the murder weapon or on the couch, where she said she was stabbed. Police suggested she inflicted her wounds while standing over the kitchen sink.
The trial was moved to Kerr County following intense media coverage. Routier testified that she did not kill her sons and that she didn’t remember anything about the attack.
It took about seven hours of deliberation for the jury to convict her of capital murder.
Over the past two decades, Routier has appealed her conviction several times, and additional DNA tests have been ordered in the case.
Spectators remain divided. Supporters of Routier often cite a bloody sock found in an alley about 75 yards from the family’s home. The sock contained blood from both boys, and defenders argue that the timing of the 911 call would have been impossible for Routier to have killed her sons, stabbed herself, cut the window and run down the alley – all while leaving no blood trail of her own. A private investigator who worked on Routier’s defense team also questioned how Routier was able to cut her own throat at the angle it was slashed and stab herself in her dominant, right arm.
Those who believe Routier killed her children have said supporters are cherry-picking pieces of evidence, and that the “totality of evidence is what convinced the jury.”
Mark Robertson, 57
Mark Robertson was convicted in 1991 for the robbery and murder of 81-year-old Edna Brau in her Preston Hollow home. He also received two life sentences for killing her grandson, Sean Hill, and a convenience store clerk, Jeffrey Saunders. The 57-year-old has been on death row for 34 years.
Robertson reportedly shot Brau between the eyes in 1989 as she slept on her couch. He then stole her Cadillac and drove to Las Vegas, where he was arrested.
Defense attorneys argued that because of Robertson’s upbringing and drug use, he should have been sentenced to life in prison. Robertson was not abused, but watched as his father beat and terrorized his siblings, according to testimony. Prosecutors, however, said that Robertson’s crimes and potential to commit future violence mean he should get a death sentence.
His death sentence was upheld after another hearing in 2009. Robertson was granted the second hearing after a federal appellate court ruled that his original jury had been given confusing instructions on how to consider his punishment.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.