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Background

Gary Lee Graham was born September 5th, 1963, in Houston, Texas. By the time he was 17 years old, he was an illiterate 9th-grade dropout and father of two who enjoyed running around with guns and terrorizing the public.

Between May 14th and May 20th, 1981, he robbed 13 people at gunpoint. He pistol-whipped two victims, shot one in the neck, shot another in the thigh, and ran another over with a car. He also kidnapped and violated a 57-year-old female taxi driver at a vacant home. He then took her back to his place, where he bragged of killing three people and told her she would be next.

The idiot fell asleep, and the woman took his gun and contacted authorities. They busted into Graham’s home and arrested him. He would never see freedom again.

He confessed to robberies, assaults, car theft, and other terrible crimes. He pleaded guilty to 10 counts of aggravated robbery and got a light 20-year sentence. Still, when police started accusing him of the May 13th, 1981 murder of 53-year-old Bobby Grant Lambert outside a Houston supermarket, he denied being involved.

Authorities had several witnesses to the shooting, but only one person, Bernadine, positively identified Graham in a live police lineup the day after she failed to pick him from a photo lineup.

She claimed she saw Graham pull a gun on Lambert, so she blew her horn, and Graham looked directly at her. She also declared after the shooting, she followed Graham for a short distance before stopping at the request of her terrified kids.

When Graham went to trial, he didn’t have an alibi.

The prosecution had several of Graham’s victims take the stand, including the woman he kidnapped and violated, and a robbery victim who testified Graham said, “I’ll kill you. Blowing away another white motherfucker don’t mean nothing to me.”

The primary witness for the prosecution was Bernadine. The defense tried to break her during cross-examination, but she didn’t fold, and the jury thought she was credible.

Her testimony was the key to the state getting a capital murder conviction. During the penalty phase of his trial, the jury learned about his violent spree in May 1981 and decided he didn’t deserve to live anymore. He was sentenced to death despite being 17 at the time of his crimes.

Attempts To Get Off Death Row

Over the following years, Graham brought forward witnesses to give him an alibi for the time Lambert was killed, but those witnesses were not considered credible.

His supporters also felt Graham got shafted because others who witnessed the shooting felt Graham was shorter than the man they saw shoot Lambert, yet they did not testify at his trial.

Graham was scheduled to die in 1987 and three times in 1993, but each time, he was given a stay of execution.

By the time his execution was scheduled for a 5th time in January 1999, he was going by the name Shaka Sankofa, and he had many celebrities, including Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Kenny Rogers, supporting him as they felt the single eyewitness wasn’t credible.

While in prison, Sankofa tried to show that he was a changed man. He learned to read and write, earned his GED, and got a Paralegal certificate.

He spoke out or wrote to many of his victims, apologizing for his actions. But he showed his true colors when he asked his supporters to come to the prison with weapons in January 1999 and stop his execution.

None of his self-improvement, apologies, or antics prevented him from receiving the ultimate punishment.

Execution

He declined to eat in the days leading up to his execution.

On June 22nd, 2000, Sankofa refused to exit his cell, so he had to be dragged out and taken to the death chamber. It took five guards to strap him to the gurney.

Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and the victim’s family members watched as Sankofa was injected with a lethal cocktail of drugs. He was pronounced dead at 8:59 pm.

A very long final statement was released in which he referred to himself as “an innocent man” and called his execution a “legal lynching.”

At his funeral on June 29th, more than 2000 people attended to say goodbye to a man they didn’t think deserved to die.