Travis Mullis wrote and recorded a confession in which he said he killed the person. During Mullis’s trial, his lawyers asked the judges to think about a lesser charge against him and focused on his past of mental illness that began when he was a child.
Travis Mullis, from Brazoria County, is going to be put to death in Huntsville on Tuesday for killing his 3-month-old son in a brutal way 16 years ago.
On or after Tuesday at 6 p.m., he will be put to sleep by fatal injection at the Huntsville Unit.
Mullis tried to sexually assault an 8-year-old girl hours before he killed his son on January 28, 2008. He was living with his girlfriend and kid in a friend’s trailer home in Brazoria County.
He put their 3-month-old son Alijah Mullis in the backseat of their car and drove to Galveston after a fight with his girlfriend. He abused his son sexually. According to court papers, Mullis strangled the baby after failing to calm him down and then stepped on Alijah’s head and threw his dead body onto a faraway berm along the Galveston seawall.
Mullis ran away to Philadelphia, but a few days later he turned himself in to the police and admitted that he killed his son.
In a written and recorded confession, the man said he did it. During Mullis’s trial, his lawyers asked the judges to think about a lesser charge against him and focused on his past of mental illness that began when he was a child.
Lawyers for Mullis’ defense said that his adoptive father sexually attacked him. He went in and out of mental health care centers and was diagnosed with a number of mental illnesses. Court papers show that he repeatedly said he felt like committing suicide.
Mullis sometimes tried to fight an order to have him put to death. At other times, he demanded that the execution go faster. At his May court meeting, Mullis was asked if there was anything wrong with the date of his sentencing. He and his defense did not say anything.
In a letter to the court in 2012, Mullis said, “I have always admitted guilt and those families deserve justice.”
In 2005, Robert Shields was put to death for beating and killing a Friendswood woman after breaking into her home. He was the last person in Galveston County to be given the death sentence.