Daniel Hittle

Daniel Joe Hittle (March 1, 1950 – December 6, 2000) was an American serial killer, spree killer, and mass murderer who shot and killed five people, including a police officer, during a rampage in Dallas and Garland, Texas in 1989. At the time, he was on parole for the 1973 murders of his adoptive parents in Motley, Minnesota. For his crimes in Texas, Hittle was sentenced to death and subsequently executed in 2000.

Early life and parricide Daniel Joe Hittle was born on March 1, 1950, in Perry County, Indiana, but was adopted at an early age by Henry and Margaret Hittle, a couple who later moved to a small farm in Motley, Minnesota. While not much is known about his upbringing, friends and acquaintances of Hittle described him as a quiet, polite man who could not stand being teased and became violent when drunk. His best friend from high school, Gary Wentworth, later revealed in a press interview that Hittle developed a festering hatred for his religious stepmother, as he considered her an overbearing and overly strict person, which was not aided by the fact that Hittle had developed an addiction to hard drugs. In one incident, one of his wives said that he shot a neighbor's dog for barking at him. In another case, he decided to kill the family dog since he thought it was killing other farm animals. To do so, he tied it to a tree, shot it with his shotgun, and then left the corpse tied to it. His adoptive parents' bodies were found lying just inside the front door of the house. He pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and received two concurrent 30-year sentences, to be served at the Minnesota Correctional Facility – Stillwater.

Parole, move to Texas, and killing spree In the same month as Hittle's trial was taking place, a bill proposed and sponsored by State Representative James E. Ulland was passed which mandated that convicts serving at least a 20-year sentence may be eligible for parole without needing to serve the minimum sentence, provided that they were model inmates. On the way, he was stopped by 48-year-old police officer Gerald Ray Walker, who pulled him over for driving over the speed limit. Fearful that Walker would notice his loaded gun in the back, Hittle pulled it out and shot the officer in the chest before speeding away, leaving Walker to slowly succumb to his injuries. Hittle attempted to escape, but crashed his truck and then started a gunfight with authorities, only to surrender when he ran out of ammunition. Her surviving family members agreed to have the life-support system turned off, and consented to her organs being donated for science. Due to his death sentence, it was decided that he would not be tried for the other deaths. Throughout the proceedings, Hittle was noted for his carefree and seemingly happy demeanor, with some witnesses testifying that he had bragged about his parents' murders and had spoken of killing police officers in the past. On January 10, 1994, his final appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States was denied, effectively cementing his death sentence.

Execution On December 6, 2000, Hittle was executed via lethal injection at the Huntsville Unit. His last statement was "Sant Ajaib Singh. That's it", referencing the Indian guru Ajaib Singh. His execution was attended by several witnesses, including Gerald Walker's widow and another police officer, with the former releasing a statement thanking the state of Texas for carrying out the procedure.