David Hicks Speech

David Hicks was a 34 year old black male. He was on death row in Texas from December of 1987 to April of 1988, sentenced to die by lethal injection for rape and murder, on April 25th 1988, of his 87-year-old grandmother, Ms. Ocolor Heggar. David was only a suspect because he was near her house at the time of the crime. There was no indication that he had been inside¡Xexcept, for DNA evidence. The DNA test determined that similarities between sections of DNA removed from David¡¦s blood and DNA recovered from semen in Ms. Heggar¡¦s house would occur only one time in a total of 96 million people.
On the evening of Ms. Heggar¡¦s death she was alone in her house. Eddie Ray Branch, her grandson, testified that he visited his grandmother on the day that she was killed. He was there till at least 6:30 p.m. Lester Busby, her grandnephew, and David Hicks arrived while her grandson was still there and they saw him leave. They then went in to visit with Ms. Heggar. While they were there, Lester repaid Ms. Heggar 80 dollars, which he owed her. They left around 7:15 p.m. and went next door to a neighboring friend¡¦s house. David Hick¡¦s went home alone from there to get something but returned within ten minutes of leaving. Because he was only gone for 5-10 minutes, prosecution theorized TWO attacks on Ms. Heggar because he could not have killed his grandmother during this 5-10 minute period alone. At 7:30 p.m., 15 minutes after the two had left, an insurance salesman called to see Ms. Heggar. He knocked for about 2 or 3 minutes and got no reply. Her door was open but the screen door was closed. Her TV was on. He claimed to have left after about 5 minutes and then he returned the next morning. The circumstances were exactly the same. With concern, he went to the neighbor¡¦s house and called the police. His reasoning for being there was because the grandmother¡¦s family had taken out burial insurance three days before she had died.
David had strong ties and a compact relationship with his immediate family. During the course of the trial, the evidence was presented which seems to clear him:
„h Several hairs were recovered from the victim; tests revealed that they were not from David Hicks. One was found to be consistent with Asian hair, another consistent with Lester Busby, the grandnephew.