Killer of five at car wash set to be executed

Man would be eighth prisoner given lethal injection this year

By Michael Graczyk
Associated Press

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — Arrested and then fired for exposing himself to a customer at a Dallas-area car wash where he’d worked for 10 months, Robert Wayne Harris borrowed a car and gun from acquaintances and returned a week later just before it was to open for the day.

He was arrested the next day and charged with murder after five bodies were discovered at the Mi-T-Fine Car Wash in Irving.

Harris, 40, was set for execution Thursday evening for the carnage.

The car wash manager, his assistant and a cashier already were there that Monday morning 12 years ago when Harris showed up. Court records show Harris ordered that the safe containing the weekend receipts be opened and the three people get down on the floor. Each then was fatally shot and the assistant manager, who fired Harris the previous week, also had his throat slit.

Three more employees reporting for work moments later were ordered to kneel and were shot in the back of the head. Two were killed and a third survived but with permanent injuries. When yet another worker arrived, Harris told him he had just stumbled upon the bloody scene, but the man became nervous when Harris pulled a knife. He told Harris he needed to step outside, then ran to find a phone and called 911.

Harris never denied his involvement in the March 2000 massacre.

A Dallas County jury convicted Harris of capital murder after 11 minutes of deliberations, then decided he should be put to death.

“There wasn’t much question about the guilt,” Brad Lollar, one of Harris’ trial lawyers, recalled. “Our whole aim was to get him a life sentence.”

Prosecutors tried him specifically for two of the slayings: Agustin Villasenor, 36, of Arlington, the assistant manager who had worked about 11 years at the car wash, and cashier Rhoda Wheeler, 46, of Irving. The other slaying victims were Villasenor’s brother, Benjamin, 32, a seven-year employee; Dennis Lee, 48, of Irving, the car wash manager; and Roberto Jimenez Jr., 15, also an employee and from Mexico.

“I remember looking at the crime scene photos,” Greg Davis, the lead prosecutor in the case, said this week. “I remember the floors just covered with blood. I remember just the vicious nature of the offense and that fact is was conceived by Robert Harris.”

The day after Harris confessed to the car wash bloodbath, he led police to a ditch in the weedy and littered Trinity River floodplain and the remains of an Irving woman, Sandra Scott, 37, who had been missing for four months. He was charged but never tried for capital murder in her abduction and slaying.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Tuesday rejected a clemency request from Harris.

Appeals pending before the U.S. Supreme Court argued the jury that heard the case against Harris, who is black, was unfairly selected by prosecutors who used their jury challenges to exclude potential black jurors from the panel.

“Prosecutors engaged in purposeful racial discrimination,” Harris’ appellate attorney, Lydia Brandt, told the court.

Davis denied the claims. State attorneys told the Supreme Court the trial record includes nothing to indicate the race of jurors or those who were not selected.
Another appeal contended Harris was mentally impaired and he should not be put to death because of a Supreme Court prohibition against executing the mentally impaired.

Harris has declined to speak with reporters from prison, with his execution date approaching. Lollar described him as a cooperative client but “the worst stutterer I have ever seen.” Lollar speculated the speech disorder was a result of Harris, at age 8, watching his father kill his mother and then was worsened by his mental impairment.

“That would affect the mind of anybody,” he said.

Court records show when Harris was 18 he was convicted of three burglaries, evading arrest and was charged with unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. His probation was revoked after he fled a treatment program and he went to prison for eight years. He spent most of his time in administrative segregation, a confinement level for troublesome inmates.

Harris would be the eighth Texas prisoner given lethal injection this year. At least 10 other condemned inmates have execution dates scheduled in the coming months in the nation’s busiest capital punishment state, including one set for next week.