Robert Dale Rowell

After being indicted for capital murder on March 1, 1994, he was found guilty and sentenced to death by a jury on April 7. The conviction and sentence were affirmed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on December 18, 1996. A petition for writ of certiorari was denied by the Supreme Court of the United States on October 6, 1997 and further appeals for writ of habeas corpus were denied by his trial court and Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 1998 and 2002 respectively.

Prior to the events of May 10, 1993, Rowell already had a criminal record. In 1973 he had served concurrent sentences of ten and twelve years for armed robberies. While on parole in 1980 he had robbed a restaurant at gunpoint. One of the patrons was a police officer, who took chase. After the man had identified himself as a police officer, Rowell had fired at the officer. After being arrested in a parking lot nearby, he was sentenced on November 18, 1980 to 30 years. During this prison sentence he stabbed another inmate with a homemade knife at Ramsey I prison in Brazoria County and was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to eight years in prison.

Robert Dale Rowell (April 8, 1955 – November 15, 2005) was a murderer executed by lethal injection by the U.S. state of Texas. He was convicted of the May 10, 1993 murder of Raymond Davey Mata in a Houston, Texas crack house.