Texas executed James Bigby, 61, who was convicted of the killings of a father and his infant son, the Associated Press reports. At his trial, Bigby grabbed a loaded gun from a drawer in the courtroom and tried to attack the judge. He was the fourth inmate in Texas and the sixth nationally to be executed by injection this year. Bigby was convicted of fatal shooting of Michael Trekell, 26, and the suffocation of Trekell’s 4-month-old son, Jayson, at their home in Arlington on Christmas Eve 1987. Bigby also was accused but not tried for killing two other men, believing they along with Trekell were conspiring against him in a workers’ compensation case he filed against a former employer.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2015 refused to review Bigby’s case after a lower federal court had rejected appeals. At his 1991 capital murder trial in Fort Worth, Bigby grabbed a loaded gun from behind District Judge Don Leonard’s bench during a court recess and barged into Leonard’s chambers. The judge and a prosecutor wrestled Bigby to the floor and pulled the gun away and the judge continued presiding over the case. Jurors were told about the attack, rejected Bigby’s insanity defense and decided he should die.