Convicted killer at Fort Worth kids party gets death date

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A Fort Worth man on death row for the shooting deaths of a 5-year-old girl and her grandmother at a children’s birthday party a decade ago has received an execution date.

Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials have received court documents setting 30-year-old Erick Davila for lethal injection April 25.

Evidence showed Davila opened fire in April 2008 on a rival gang member at the party where 15 children were eating cake and ice cream on the front porch of a Fort Worth home. Five-year-old Queshawn Stevenson and her grandmother, 48-year-old Annette Stevenson, were killed.

The U.S. Supreme Court last year rejected an appeal where Davila contended his lawyers failed to challenge a faulty jury instruction at his trial and on appeal.