Robbie Byrd
News Editor
June 07, 2007 12:27 am
—
A former Harris County sheriff’s deputy was executed in quiet but emotional fashion Wednesday night for the murder and sexual assault of a Houston woman more than 12 years ago.
Michael Durwood Griffith, 56, was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m., nine minutes after the lethal drugs hit his veins.
Griffith is one of only a handful of former police officers on death row.
While prison officials could not confirm, Griffith is the only police officer in recent memory to be executed since they resumed in Texas in 1982.
Griffith was executed for the 1994 murder of flower shop clerk Deborah McCormick.
McCormick was stabbed to death 11 times with a butcher knife; twice the wounds pierced straight through her heart.
Both of McCormick’s two grown daughers and her brother, son-in-law and ex-husband witnessed Griffith’s execution.
“Michael Griffith will meet his judgment today and not only here on earth,” Dawn Kirkland, McCormick’s daughter, said in a written statement released after the execution. “We pray for his daughters and family at this time.
“As hard as this is for our family to live through, we can only imagine the heartache this causes them as well. May God bless and comfort you.”
Griffith offered only “no, sir” as his final statment, glancing over briefly at his daughter, Michelle Clark, ex-wife Cheryl Stanley and spiritual adviser witnessing the execution from the right-side viewing chamber.
As the drugs began taking effect, Griffith said in a barely audible whisper, “Please take my spirit to the Lord.”
Clark hesitated until just before Griffith was asked for his last statement before entering the execution viewing room, pleaing for “a moment” before stepping up to the glass and pale green bars that separate the chamber from witnesses.
“He looks so stubborn,” Clark said of her father only moments after the lethal dose had completed.
Griffith was silent during the execution, prompting his daughter to ask “is it done?”
“It’s a very peaceful thing,” said Ron Cloutier, a spiritual adviser for the family. “He’s waited for this for a long time. The fact that the two of you were here was very important. It made it a lot easier. It really did.”
Friends and family of McCormick fought back tears during the execution, but did not speak, only staring forward at Griffith’s body.
Griffith was the 15th inmate to be executed this year and the first of five executions scheduled for June, including Cathy Henderson, who is set to die next week.
He spent the three days preceeding his execution on frequent visits with family and friends. For his last meal at around 4 p.m. Wednesday, Griffith requested a breakfast.
Stanley, along with other ex-wives and girlfriends, testified during the punishment phase of Griffith’s trial that he was charming and abusive, pervading a “Jekyl-and-Hyde” personality.
Griffith broke several of Stanley’s ribs during their marriage, she testified, and at one point held a gun to her head.
Other romantic interests of Griffith testified he was abusive, including a former co-worker from the Harris County Sheriff’s Office.
In January 1993, a little over a year and a half before McCormick’s murder, Griffith held the woman hostage, threatening her with a pair of scissors, reportedly telling her “it’s a good day for you to die.”
The incident ultimately ended his career in law enforcement.
But other co-workers of Griffith recalled him as a model policeman.
"He was a good officer," said Bay County, Fla., Sheriff Frank McKeithen, who worked with Griffith in the mid-1970s. "Everybody liked him, his supervisors liked him. ... It just came as a total shock when I read what had happened. It was gut-wrenching to see his picture. It's like two different people."
McKeithen said Griffith even received Bay County officer of the year, though he could not recall the exact year.
The dual personality of Griffith was a shining hope for defense attorney’s during his trial.
A defense psychologist said Griffith suffered from borderline personality disorder that showed up against wives and girlfriends whose actions reminded him of growing up in Los Angeles where his neglectful mother was described as often angry and violent, often drunk.
A Harris County jury found no sympathy for Griffith and voted for the death penalty.
FBI Agent Allan Brantley, a member of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crimes, testified that there was a high probabilty that Griffith’s acts of violence would continue, comparing him to a sexual predator.
“Such a predator will continue to look for similar outlets for sexual gratification, and, if isolated from females, he will look for a similar victim within the available population, which could include weaker males,” Brantley told jurors, according to a release from the Texas Attorney General’s office.
However, records from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice show that Griffith had been well-behaved during his more than 11-year stay on death row.
Griffith had been a customer at the Always and Forever Florist Shop and Wedding Chapel in Katy where McCormick worked several times before.
According to information released at the trial, Griffith stole $400 in cash from McCormick, along with several credit cards belonging to McCormick’s mother, Mary Ringer.
Griffith then sexually assaulted McCormick, forcing her to perform sexual acts on him, according to information from the TDCJ.
Griffith was found in a hotel room three weeks after the murder. In his posession were Ringer’s credit cards, a receipt from Always and Forever and the knife police later proved to be the murder weapon.
“The evidence against him was overwhelming,” said David Cunningham, one of his trial lawyers. “When you focus on the circumstances of his arrest — they find him with the credit cards, the knife with her DNA on it, they had him on at least two other crimes — there really wasn’t much. We didn’t contest the issue of guilt-innocence. It was a punishment case from the start.”
Four days after the murder, Griffith shot the lone clerk at Guardian Savings and Loan in Houston twice in the head. One bullet grazed her head, and the other lodged into her skull. The clerk survived and later identified Griffith as the shooter.
Two weeks later, Griffith robbed a bridal salon in Houston and sexually assaulted one of the employees.
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