James Bigby will be put to death on 14 March will be the 542th execution in Texas since 1982.
Bigby has spent the last 25 years on death row after a two-day killing spree in which four people were left dead.
On 23 December 1987, Bigby was at the home of his friend, Mike Trekell. Trekell was cooking steaks for the pair when Bigby shot him in the head - he then drowned Trekell's four-month-old son Jayson in a sink.
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Grace Kehler, the partner of Trekell and mother of Jayson, came home to find the bodies and immediately contacted police who launched a manhunt for the killer.
Bigby drove to the apartment of his friend Calvin Crane and once there asked Crane to drive him to the shop; on the return journey Bigby forced him to pull over and shot him in the head at the roadside and killed him.
Credit: PA
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Bigby continued on to the home of another friend, Frank 'Bubba' Johnson, who he fatally shot three times before fleeing in Crane's truck.
By this point a massive manhunt was under way and, on 26 December, Bigby was arrested after a stand-off at a hotel in Fort Worth.
A negotiator was called in to encourage Bigby to surrender, and during the stand-off the negotiator said: "You're an American. You're presumed innocent until proven guilty. Everything is going to be all right." To which Bigby replied, "I'm guilty. I know it and so do you."
In a later written confession to the police, he claimed that he was innocent by reason of insanity.
Credit: Texas Police Department
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Bigby was charged and the case was brought to trial, during which time he made an attempt to escape. While the court took a break, Bigby managed to grab a loaded gun from the judge's bench and walked into the judge's chamber where he aimed the revolver at the judge's head and said, 'let's go'.
He was tackled by the judge, a prosecutor and a bailiff and the gun was wrestled out of his hand. The incident led to the defence calling for a mistrial, which was denied.
The defence also requested that a new judge be used in the trial, which was also denied. The judge testified at a hearing that the incident wouldn't prejudice him against Bigby.
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Throughout the trial Bigby stuck by his original defence and had several psychiatrists testify to his mental illness, with one stating that he had paranoid schizophrenia at the time.
He had been treated three times for mental disorders prior to the killings.
Credit: PA
During the trial, the jury would hear that Bigby had been telling friends for several months that he wanted to go out in a 'blaze of glory' and that, if cornered, he would kill police officers.
He was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to death. Since then he has appealed several times on the grounds of his mental illness, but has been unsuccessful.
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The case has caused outrage for some who believe that Bigby's paranoid schizophrenia should have been a significant mitigating factor in this sentencing.
Speaking after an appeal upheld his sentence of death, Calvin Crane's son, Kevin Crane, said: "There is no guarantee I'll survive, but I hope I live long enough to see that justice for my father will be served.
"Both of Bigby's juries were fair. My father did not have a judge and jury the night Bigby took him from us."
As of 1 July, 2016, there were 2,905 inmates on death row, spread across 31 states and estimated to be waiting an average of 15 years between sentencing and execution.
Source: UPI, ABQ Journal,Star Telegram, and Death Penalty Info
Featured Image Credit: Texas Department Of Criminal Justice