Man executed for strangling stepmother

By Kristin Edwards

A convicted rapist who was found guilty of killing his stepmother by strangling her with a phone cord was executed Thursday at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Walls Unit.

Reginald Perkins, 53, was convicted and sentenced to death in March 2002 for the December 2000 murder of 64-year-old Gertie Perkins.

His execution is the third to be carried out in Texas since Jan. 14, and three more executions are scheduled before the end of the month.

During his official last statement, Perkins chose to speak briefly to the witnesses present on his behalf.

However, during the hour before his execution, Perkins made a statement to Jason Clark, TDCJ public information officer.

“I am innocent and I did not do this,” Perkins said. “They didn’t link me to nothing. I did not kill my stepmom. I loved her, and Texas is going to kill an innocent man.”

Perkins was pronounced dead at 6:24 p.m., approximately eight minutes after he was administered a lethal injection.

According to information released by the Texas Attorney General’s office, Reginald Perkins has been connected by DNA evidence to at least two other murders since his conviction and sentence to death for the murder of Gertie Perkins, and he is suspected in a third.

On the subject of other murders he has been connected to, Perkins insisted he was also innocent of those crimes.

“There’s other suspects they questioned besides me, and they let them go,” he said. “I can’t tell you who killed them — I ain’t killed nobody.”

According to information released by the Texas Attorney General’s office, Perkins’ father, Willie Perkins, learned his wife was missing when she failed to pick up their grandson from school on Dec. 4, 2000.

After failed attempts to locate her, the police were notified when Willie Perkins found a small blood stain on his carpet.

On the same day, police arrested Reginald Perkins after learning of his previous criminal record.

When he was arrested, Reginald Perkins asked to speak with his father, who asked his son if he had any good news concerning the location of Gertie Perkins.

“I’m afraid not,” Reginald Perkins told his father while in police custody. “She’s dead.”

Reginald Perkins directed his father and the police to a parking garage where they found Gertie Perkins’ car parked.

When Willie Perkins asked if he could get out of the car, Reginald Perkins told him not to go, after which the police found the woman’s body in the trunk of the car.

An autopsy conducted on the body showed that the woman had bruises on her head and mouth, and the medical examiner indicated that she was strangled with a thin, smooth object like a phone cord.

During their initial investigations, local police discovered that the woman’s bedroom telephone cord had been disconnected.

On the day Gertie Perkins disappeared, Reginald Perkins sold her wedding ring at a pawn shop for $150. He also paid a known crack user $200 to cash two checks — valued at a total of $1,300 — which had been written from the Perkins’ trucking business account.

While in jail awaiting his trial, Reginald Perkins told a fellow inmate that “they only had a body and a phone cord, [but] no witnesses.”

Perkins also told the inmate that he had beaten the victim to death and that his motive was robbery.

In 1982, Reginald Perkins was convicted of rape of a minor, attempted rape and gross sexual imposition — the victims of these convictions were two 12-year-old girls.

In 1999, an Ohio court found that Perkins was a sexual predator.