Codefendant Norman was executed one week earlier for same killings
Ramey was convicted of capital murder in January 2007 for the triple killing, according to United Press International. Court records cited by UPI state that Ramey, then 20, and Norman, then 19, broke into Roberts’ home in Edna on Aug. 24, 2005, believing Roberts had at least a kilogram of cocaine they intended to steal. The two shot and killed Roberts, 24, Lopez, 38, and Peacock, 18, before fleeing.
Investigators received a tip that November implicating Ramey, who was questioned the following December at a Texas detention facility where he was being held on unrelated charges, UPI reported. Norman was arrested in January 2006 as he attempted to re-enter the United States from Mexico, where he lived with his girlfriend. Norman testified against Ramey, who was tried first and convicted by a jury that had no Black jurors, UPI reported.
Ramey was 21 years old when he entered death row, UPI reported.
In his last statement, Ramey said he had grown “to become something greater” than the man written about in the newspapers. He apologized to his two children for his failures, for not being there “and the things you may have had to go through.” “I attempted to structure things so you can have a positive male and individuals around you guys moving forward so the knowledge that I started to give to you is not lost,” Ramey said. He expressed gratitude to the other inmates he came in prison, who “poured into me and showed what it means to be a man, and didn’t understand what manhood was.” “I didn’t come from a culture in a healthy sense,” he said. “To my brothers, I can’t name everybody, you know who you are, I greatly appreciate you.”
Ramey had appealed his conviction over the years on grounds of racial discrimination in jury selection and ineffective assistance of counsel, though those claims were rejected, UPI reported. The Supreme Court denied his final stay application and certiorari petition earlier on Wednesday, clearing the way for the execution.
The Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty said in a statement after the execution that Ramey’s trial was “marred by serious constitutional violations, including the systematic exclusion of all potential Black jurors, the State’s presentation of false testimony and, above all, the abysmal performance of his trial attorney — a full-time dentist and part-time lawyer — who failed to conduct his own investigation or provide witnesses to rebut the state’s case.”
The execution was the sixth in Texas and the 28th nationwide in 2026, according to UPI. Texas has three additional executions scheduled for the remainder of the year.