May of their folks. It is Wednesday, April twenty ninth, and this week a man is scheduled to die by lethal injection for a crime he committed in nineteen seventy six. Yes, this man has been on death row for fifty years, and with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. We're used to hearing twenty even thirty years. Every once in a while you throw in a forty here and there. Fifty is mind boggling.
It is mind boggling when you think that James Ernest Hitchcock was twenty years old when he committed the act, and he was convicted a year later for raping and murdering his thirteen year old step niece. This is a horrific story. So yes, he is now seventy years old, and it's pretty remarkable. Little Cynthia Driggers, she went by Cindy,
Cindy Drigger's mom. She's still alive, she's eighty one. Because she was taken at such a young age, her mom has lived to see the day that she actually can find peace, and she wants this to happen.
She wants justice for her daughter, and.
This James Ernest Hitchcock execution is going to be taking place in Florida, going to be taking place tomorrow, scheduled for six o'clock Eastern time there in Florida, bi lethal injection ropes. It's one of two that we'll have on that night in the United States. The other in Texas. We'll get into that one in another episode, but we'll stay focused on this one. En rolls a big part
of this. We'll get into the crime, but a big part of this is why in God's name has a family been waiting for fifty years for what the government told them is the justice is deserved for their family member.
Would you believe it if I told you that James Ernest Hitchcock has been sentenced to death four times day penalty sentencing was overturned three times. So he was initially sentenced in nineteen seventy seven, the majority of the jury voted for death and I can go through But year after year after year, there were different reasons that sentencing
would be overturned. They'd have to go through another hearing, and then it would stick for a while, then there'd be another appeal, they'd go through another hearing.
It was under this poor.
Family went through years and years, decades of court hearings and wondering whether or not that whether or not they were going to actually see the day where he went to death row.
He is finally and how many years do you have on this last one? When was the last time he was re sentenced to death?
He was re sentenced to death for the final time in nineteen ninety six. They voted ten to to vote for the death penalty. But this one really got me. Listen to this one. He came close. He came in nineteen eighty three, a federal judge issue to stay on the night before his execution. He was supposed to go to the electric chair in nineteen eighty three, and the day before a federal judge issue to stay. That's I mean, he has been think about the I mean, obviously he's had a yo yo back and forth.
Not knowing what was going to happen.
But that poor family just never knowing, and just when they think it's about to end, boom.
Something else happened. For year was that you said it was nineteen eighty three, So.
In eighty three this family came a night away from peace. Correct in eighty three? Do that math for me forty years ago.
Yes, forty three years ago, this.
Family came that close, and now they've they've been didding. That's that's even worse rope. So this back and forth is back and forth. It has continued. Now is he out of appeals? Now?
Yes, he is out of appeals and last week the Florida is Supreme Court denied, yes, that final appeal for him. He was asking for a stay of execution. Once again that was denied.
Obviously we know DeSantis is not going to save him down there, so this does look like this is it now? Finally after fifty years for this family.
Correct DeSantis signed his death warrant.
I believe it was April second, so this month he carefully reviewed the case and signed the execution. So he is not going to be calling at the eleventh hour to stop this execution from happening.
This puts Florida at what for the year six?
Is this their sixth This was the seventh warrant that was signed.
But we know that the other execution, duck it Ja, was staged, so that didn't go through. So I believe he will be the sixth person executed. He was the seventh death warrant that DeSantis signed of the year.
Man, this is Florida alone. We're talking about Yes, good night Florida. So they're on pace. So yes, when the year started, they didn't have a lot of executions on the schedule, and he signed these things as they put him in front. There's no telling how many they get in.
Well, he's already signed more so yes, there's more coming, but this one that is happening tomorrow. James Ernest Hitchcock, We're going to go over the crime for you, because this is pretty brutal. And he has, by the way, maintained his innocence from the beginning, so for the past fifty years. He initially said he did it, but he
said he was covering for his brother. Pretty quickly changed his story and has stayed with this story that he claims it was his brother who murdered the thirteen year old, not him.
But here, yes, go ahead, but.
No, no, that initial confession was pretty horrific and specific.
Was it not correct? It was so he was.
This was in nineteen seventy six, when James Hitchcock actually had just been released from an Arkansas prison at the age of twenty. His brother let him move in with him and his family.
Two weeks after moving.
In with his brother, after a night out of drinking and smoking weed, around two thirty in the morning, he says he came back and he crawled into the house through the window of his thirteen year old step niece and what he.
Was convicted of.
Cynthia began yelling and threatening he raped her, said she was going to tell her mom and what he was convicted of. The they said he took her outside, beat and strangled her to death and then left her body outside just in the bushes, went back inside, took a shower, and then went to bed. The entire next day, the whole family is looking for her. They cannot find little thirteen year old Cindy Driggers, and then they find her
right outside the home in the bushes. And he was arrested pretty shortly thereafter.
And he and then he confessed to a lot of this and rope some of this was disturbing to hear. How I mean, he goes through in robes and almost describes dialogue in a back and forth of him almost trying to convince her not to tell mom, and the girl insisted that she was going to tell. I mean it sounded like he didn't want but didn't plan to kill her initially, And this was his confession.
Correct, and he just said he couldn't have because he didn't want to go back to prison. Oh, the irony, because he obviously knew she was thirteen and he was twenty. Now when he changed his story, he claimed that he'd yes, did have sex with this thirteen year old, but that it was consensual, not that it can be because she'd have to be eighteen, but he said she was a
willing participant. And then right after they had sex, his brother, he claims, walked in on them and was so angry he took the thirteen year old outside, beat and strangled her. And then, because he claims he felt so bad about creating suchuation, he told his brother that he would take the fall for him. That was his changed story, one that a jury did not buy or believe, and one that he's been telling now for fifty years. But there's not really anyone who's buying what he's selling.
And no judge has, no appellate court has the Supreme Court has not, the State Supreme Court has not. Jeff Desantas has not, and Robes he's out of options there is at this point, there is nothing. There is nothing out there that can save him. So Robes is pretty remarkable. This is and we were talking about this earlier. I asked, first thing I asked, is he the guy? Is he the longest on death row that we have in the country.
Not quite, But it's just it's remarkable, Robes that we could keep somebody in prison for fifty years planning to execute them.
He had a long runway more almost a dozen appeals that went through that this family has lived through for the past five fifty years.
Again, we don't want to obviously, we never want to get it wrong. But I mean, what's the point of having it. He's fifty fifty, he's seventy. I don't know if you've seen a picture or one had no kind of shape or health he's.
In that It doesn't look great. Doesn't look great.
Execute a seventy year old guy for something he did fifty years ago. Lord knows, he's not the same person, and this is the punishment he's supposed to have that we've told for what he did. But man, those two individuals are I would guess different people. We're about to execute a seventy year old guy. I'm sorry, I didn't
think to go with this. Well, I just think how separate, how separated those two individuals are, that twenty year old guy and that seventy year old guy we're about to execute tomorrow night.
I know it doesn't make any sense if you're going to have the death penalty. Yes, you obviously have to have some appeals process, but what has happened and what has been happening in this country is just unfair to the family members who have an expectation that they'll finally be able to have some peace and put this behind them, not having to go to court trials and court hearings and wonder what's going to happen for five decades.
So when we come back, we are going to tell you.
What Cindy's family is saying now to finally, finally reaching execution day and the welcome back everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ, where we are talking about the long awaited execution of now seventy year old James Ernest Hitchcock. He was twenty years old when he committed this horrific act of raping and murdering his thirteen year old step niece,
Cynthia Cindy Driggers, and now it's pretty remarkable. After being sentenced and re sentenced to death four separate times, nearly a dozen appeals, and five decades later, he will finally be executed tomorrow night by lethal ejection at six pm Eastern time in Florida. And even despite the fact that all those years have passed, more than a dozen of Cindy's relatives say they plan to witness his execution.
Well because this has been their life. This is for so many of them rooms they were kid and her cousins we were talking about robes. This has been their entire life. This trauma of losing this child in their family, this has been with their whole life. They went, okay, trial, death sentence, here's the first death sentence date. Okay, that one didn't work out. It's been on and own. I bet you and I sometimes with the business we work in,
we see our lives through contracts. Three years, two year deal, four year deal. They can see their entire many of them their adulthood by trial, first appeal, second sentence, like it's set up for their life.
This is awful for them, it really is.
This is their entire life.
And she was the oldest of five kids, so she has brothers and sisters who she never really got to know or didn't have the opportunity to actually really grow up with them. And so it makes sense that that many family members are showing up to finally see this day arrive. Her mom, Helen I mentioned she's eighty one years old. Her quote, she was just interviewed by the local press there and she said, I'm not joyful, but I really really hope it does happen this time. But
we've been down this road before. I hope and pray that now is the time. And then Cindy's cousin said this, and this speaks to what our justice system has done to these.
Families by waiting all of this time.
She said, my anger is about what this has done to my family and what this has put them through. When you go to the court time after time and you see a public defender put her arm around him in court, that will set your anger thermometer way up there. Like all those little interactions, any sympathy this man might have received by his attorneys, you don't even like. They're watching and they're looking and they're seething, and they've had to live through it over and over and over again.
That's it. I find that incredible that they're all going to be there, that it's still important for them to show up. They have shown up for this little girl for fifty years and they keep showing up. That's that's incredible, and that many of them were after fifty years, they still it's important to do it. I applaud this family.
It is going to be quite the scene there in Florida, and it was very clear that obviously his death doesn't bring Cindy back, and it doesn't bring them any joy as they expressed, but it does for this family and it will bring them peace, and that is the very least they deserve after everything have been through.
We will, of course keep.
Our eye on all that is going on in Florida and in Texas because yes, there is another execution set for April thirtieth in Texas, So keep checking out this feed because there will be another episode about.
The second execution of the night.
This year's already getting off to a heck of a start when it comes to execution, so we will stay on top of it all. We always appreciate you listening to us everyone. I'm Amy roboch alongside TJ.
Holmes. We will talk to you soon.