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May 19, 2005, 10:14PM Ex-mechanic is executed for Corpus Christi killingHe and 2 others lured man to park in 1996 robberyBy MICHAEL GRACZYKAssociated Press
In a brief final statement, Richard Cartwright thanked his friends and family for their support. "I want to apologize to the victim's family for any pain and suffering I caused them," he said. Then he urged his fellow death row inmates to "just keep your heads up and stay strong." His mother, a sister and three friends were among the witnesses, some of them crying after he sputtered and gasped a couple of times. "They killed a good man, an excellent man," his mother, Irene Rekitzke, said after he was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m. "Thank you God for taking him away from all this." There were no witnesses from the murder victim's family. Cartwright, 31, was the eighth Texas prisoner put to death this year and the second in as many days. Cartwright was one of three men who duped Nick Moraida into thinking they were homosexuals offering to share beer with him at a beachfront park along Corpus Christi Bay in 1996. Instead, Moraida was stabbed then shot to death while being robbed of his watch and wallet containing between $60 and $200. His assailants hoped to use the money to buy drugs and alcohol. Kelly Overstreet, 27, and Dennis Hagood, 28, are serving long prison terms. They agreed to plea bargains and testified against Cartwright. Less than an hour before his scheduled lethal injection, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a late appeal in which Cartwright's lawyers argued he was condemned by a Nueces County jury because of testimony Overstreet now insisted was false. Overstreet originally placed much of the blame for the shooting on Cartwright, but in a written statement to Cartwright's lawyers earlier this month, Overstreet said, "I intentionally made Cartwright out to be the bad guy out of spite when in fact I am the one who was at the forefront of all events."
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