They say that Higgs did not order these murders and there is insufficient evidence to suggest he did so, according to The New York Times. Haynes pulled the trigger and killed all three women. The Justice Department states that Higgs then ordered the women out of the vehicle, gave a gun to one of his friends and said "better make sure they're dead". Higgs offered them a ride home to Washington, but instead drove them to a secluded area in the Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge. 23, and Tanji Jackson, 21 - who they had invited back to Higgs' apartment, according to the Department of Justice.Īt the apartment, Jackson rejected an advance by Higgs, and the women decided to leave.
In January 1996, Higgs and two friends drove to Washington to pick up three women - Tamika Black, 19, Mishann Chinn. Here's what you need to know about the alleged crime and execution of Dustin Higgs. It comes less than a week before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who is against the death penalty and has promised he will work to pass legislation ending federal execution. Image: Higgs, 48, had been convicted of kidnapping and murdering three women in 1996, but always maintained his innocence and appealed his conviction numerous times. "I’d like to say I am an innocent man," Dustin Higgs said in the moments before his execution on Friday. He became the 13th federal execution carried out by the Trump administration in the last six months - with Trump now overseeing more federal executions than any other president in the past 120 years.
Higgs received a lethal injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, and was pronounced dead at 1:23am on Friday. Those were the last words of Dustin Higgs, who on Friday died by the death penalty despite another man taking full responsibility for the crime he was found guilty of in a 2000 murder trial. "I’d like to say I am an innocent man… I am not responsible for the deaths.