Texas has executed Convicted death row inmate Christopher Wilkins, and he became the first US inmate executed in 2017.

Christopher Wilkins was convicted for killing two people over a $20 drug deal.

Wilkins, 48, was executed by lethal injection on 12th January Wednesday 2017, around 6 p.m at the state’s death chamber in Huntsville. He was declared dead by 6:29 p.m, local time.

Wilkins explained to jurors, how and why he killed his friends in Fort worth, saying he did not care if they sentenced him to death.

About three hours of scheduled, the Supreme Court rejected Wilkins appeal to halt the execution. Wilkins attorneys argued with the Supreme Court saying that, he had ineffective counsel and also unlawfully denied from funding, which is necessary for an adequate defense investigation.

As said by state attorneys, courts have rejected the similar appeals and the defense lawyers are employing the tactics which had delayed the process.

Christopher Wilkins was convicted for killing two of his friends, named Willie Freeman aged 40 and Mike Silva, aged 33 in the Fort Worth and dumped their bodies.

As per court records, Wilkins paid $20 for crack cocaine and Freeman gave him a piece of gravel and Freeman laughed at the scam. Wilkins said, in order to seek revenge for being tricked, he shot Freeman on Oct 28, 2005. Wilkins shot Silva because, he was there at the place.

Wilkins also declared that, a day before the shootings, he killed another man named Gilbert Vallejo, 47, in a dispute over phone outside a Fort Worth bar. Later, about a week, he used a stolen car and tried to run down two people as he believed one of them had taken his sunglasses.

“I know they are bad decisions,” Wilkins told jurors of his actions. “I make them anyway.”

One of the Wilkins trial lawyers, Wes Ball, described him as “candid to a degree you don’t see,” and had hoped his appearance on the witness stand would have made jurors like him.

Ball said,”It didn’t work.”

Authorities also discovered that he swallowed a handcuff key and While awaiting trial, authorities discovered he had swallowed a handcuff key and fashioned a knife to be used in an escape attempt.

Kevin Rousseau, The Tarrant Country assistant district attorney who prosecuted Wilkins, “This guy is the classic outlaw in the model of Billy the kid, an Old West-style outlaw.”

In U.S., last year, twenty convicted killers were executed, which is the lowest since 1980. Wilkins is one among nine, that Texas scheduled to die in the early months of 2017.

By Mrudula