A Texas man who admitted to beating and choking his own baby after abusing the 3-month-old infant called his execution by lethal injection “assisted suicide” in his final words.
Travis Mullis, 38, spoke his final words Tuesday night as he lay strapped to a gurney in the execution chamber in Huntsville, Texas.
After Mullis waived his legal right to appeal his execution for the 2008 murder of his baby, he said he had “taken legal action to expedite the carrying out of euthanasia.”
“I do not regret this decision to legally accelerate this process,” he said in his final statement.
“I regret the decision to take my son’s life. It was my decision that brought me here,” the convicted murderer added.
Mullis abused his own son Alijiah after he attempted to rape another child on January 29, 2008. according to KPRC.
Travis Mullis, 38, pictured above in the most recent photo of him available through the Texas Department of Criminal Justice
Alijah James Mullis is seen here in a photo shared by his family on Facebook
Mullis, his girlfriend and their newborn baby were living with a friend at the time who had a daughter, because they couldn’t afford to buy their own home.
Mullis confessed a few days after the murder that he tried to attack the 8-year-old boy on a playground.
“I asked her to take her pants off, but she said no,” Mullis confessed to detectives.
“She started crying, she got scared, I got scared too. I was angry about what I did. I knew it was wrong. So I said to her, ‘Let’s just go home.'”
Mullis told police that he himself had been sexually abused as a child and that he believed he could get rid of the flashbacks if he “acted on them.”
Mullis told his girlfriend what had happened between him and the girl and the couple feared they would be evicted from the mobile home if her father found out.
He said in 2018: ‘I am guilty of what I did and the death penalty is the legally justified and, in my opinion, morally justified punishment for what I did’
Baby Alijah pictured with his mother
Mullis claimed he went for a drive with the baby in Galveston to figure out what to do next.
The father, 21 at the time, claimed the baby woke up during the car ride and started crying uncontrollably.
“I was at my breaking point of stress and I was, you know, scared,” he told police.
“I panicked, I, you know, reached my breaking point and I broke at that point. I thought the only way to make him stop crying was to kill him.”
Mullis strangled the baby and then stomped him to death.
Although he did not confess, prosecutors said there was evidence he also abused the boy before dumping his body on the side of the road near the seawall.
Mullis was on the run for three days before surrendering to police in Philadelphia.
Pictured above: The area where Alijah’s body was dumped in Galveston, Texas, near the seawall
Travis Mullis confesses to killing his son in recorded interview with police
In 2011, he was found guilty and sentenced to death.
Seven years later, he filed a motion to withdraw his appeal and dismiss his attorney, hoping to hasten his execution.
“I am guilty of what I did and the death penalty is the legally justified and, in my opinion, morally justified punishment for what I did. I am prepared to accept my punishment,” he said in an interview at the time. Officials pronounced him dead at 7:01 p.m. CDT. No one from his side or the baby’s mother witnessed the execution.