The Huntsville Item, Huntsville, TX

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May 25, 2010

Alba executed for wife’s shooting

By Mary Rainwater Staff Reporter

HUNTSVILLE — A Dallas area man was executed by lethal injection Tuesday for the shooting death of his estranged wife in her apartment almost two decades ago.

When asked to give a final statement, John Alba, 54, first asked for forgiveness.

“I am sorry for taking someone so precious to you and to my kids,” he said to the victim’s family. “I wish I could take it all back and change it, but I know I can’t.”

He then turned his sentiments to his own family.

“Thanks for being beside me,” Alba said. “I appreciate you always standing by me and everything ya’ll have done.

“Tell everyone I love them,” he added. “I’ll be OK ... you will, too.”

Shortly after instructing the warden, “Let’s do it,” Alba stated he could taste the drugs already taking effect. He was pronounced dead just nine minutes later, at 6:19 p.m.

Alba and his wife, Wendy, 28, had a rocky marriage marked by alcohol abuse and infidelity and domestic violence, according to trial testimony. On the day of the shooting, Alba was released from jail after posting bail on a charge of molesting a 12-year-old girl.

The girl’s parents were among the people in the death chamber who watched Alba die.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected a request for a reprieve Monday in an appeal that argued that Alba’s sentence was improper because he wasn’t eligible for life without parole under a law passed just a few years ago, that his Hispanic race illegally figured into his sentencing, that he shouldn’t have been charged with capital murder and that his sentencing was unconstitutional.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review that appeal Tuesday, about 30 minutes before he was taken to the death chamber.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles also denied a clemency request.

Alba declined to speak with reporters as his execution date neared.

Testimony at his trial showed his wife had taken refuge in a neighbor’s apartment in Allen while she was trying to find a women’s shelter. Alba showed up, forced his way in and shot her with the .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol he bought that day.

Alba was arrested the day after the shooting in a parking lot not far from the apartment after a two-hour standoff with police in which he held a gun to his head and threatened to kill himself. A police SWAT team ended the stalemate with tear gas and a stun grenade.

Alba was the 11th prisoner executed this year in Texas, the nation’s busiest death penalty state. Next week, convicted killer George Jones faces lethal injection, on June 2, for a fatal carjacking robbery in Dallas 17 years ago.



The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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