A judge ordered Rosendo Rodriguez, III to die by lethal injection, and the date was set for March 27, 2018 at 6:00 pm.
Rodriguez was convicted of the September 2005 slaying of Summer Baldwin. Rodriguez was also implicated in the disappearance and murder of Joanna Rogers.
The bodies were both found at separate times in suitcases by landfill workers.
In late October, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Rodriguez’ appeal which had been the last hurdle to setting an execution date. He had appealed both in the state court system as well as the federal court system.
An order by State District Court Judge Jim Bob Darnell said, “The clerk of this court shall issue a death warrant in accordance with this sentence…”
It was signed on Wednesday morning.
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The text of the court’s order is as follows:
The Court hereby pronounces sentence against the defendant, Rosendo Rodriguez, Ill, as follows:
It is the order of the Court that the defendant, Rosendo Rodriguez, Ill, who has been adjudged to be guilty of Capital Murder, and whose punishment has been assessed at death, at any time after the hour of 6:00 p.m. on the 27th day of March, 2018, shall be executed by intravenous injection of a substance or substances in a lethal quantity sufficient to cause death and until the said Rosendo Rodriguez, Ill, is dead, with such execution procedure to be determined and supervised by the Director of the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
The clerk of this court shall issue a death warrant in accordance with this sentence directed to the warden of the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice at Huntsville and deliver such warrant to the Sheriff of Lubbock County to be delivered to said warden.
