Dustin Higgs

Dustin John Higgs (March 10, 1972 – January 16, 2021) was an American man who was executed by the United States federal government, having been convicted and sentenced to death for the January 1996 murders of three women in Maryland.

Tamika Black, Tanji Jackson, and Mishann Chinn were all shot and killed near the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, on the Patuxent Research Refuge in Prince George's County, Maryland.

Because this is classed as federal land, he was tried by the federal government rather than by the state of Maryland.

His case, conviction, and execution were the subject of multiple controversies.

The main contention was that Higgs did not personally kill any of the three victims, but waited in a vehicle nearby.

The man who shot them, Willis Mark Haynes, was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole plus 45 years.

The prosecution argued that although Higgs did not kill anyone, he was the ringleader, ordering and bullying Haynes.

Higgs and his defense team maintained his innocence to the end, arguing that he was merely a witness, and was set up by Haynes and another witness, Victor Gloria.

Higgs was born in Poughkeepsie, New York on March 10, 1972, to Alfonso Higgs and Marilyn M. Bennett Higgs (1945–1982).

When Dustin was 8, his mother was diagnosed with cancer.

She died two years later, in 1982.

Friends and relatives saw a big change in his mood after this.

He moved to Laurel, Maryland in 1991.

By 1996, he was married and had a son.

On the evening of January 26, 1996, Higgs, Willis Haynes, and Victor Gloria drove from Higgs' apartment in Laurel, Maryland, to Washington, D.C., to pick up Tamika Black, Tanji Jackson, and Mishann Chinn.

Dates had been arranged for each of the men and women and the groups had agreed to meet and hang out together.

The six of them traveled in Higgs' vehicle, a blue Mazda MPV van, and returned to his apartment to drink alcohol, smoke marijuana, and listen to music.

The partying continued into the early hours of January 27.

At some point during the night, an argument broke out and the women left the apartment.

Higgs, Haynes, and Gloria then headed out after them, with Higgs driving his own vehicle and Haynes sitting in the front passenger seat.

Gloria was sitting in the back of the van behind Higgs.

Higgs drove his van to the side of the road where the women were walking.

They offered the women a ride home, which they willingly accepted.

The women got into the back of the vehicle and Higgs drove out of Laurel.

Neighbors in the area reported hearing and seeing the three women laughing and talking in the early hours of that morning.

Higgs drove his van along a state road on to the Patuxent Research Refuge and stopped the vehicle near the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center.

The women got out of the van and Haynes exited the vehicle.

Haynes then fatally shot each of the three women with a silver .38 caliber pistol before returning to the van and closing the door.

The gun was then thrown into the Anacostia River.

Early on January 27, a passing motorist found the women's bodies and contacted the Park Police.

Jackson's day planner was found at the scene with Higgs' nickname and telephone number recorded in it.

According to the medical examiner, Jackson and Black had each been shot once in the chest and once in the back.

Chinn had been shot once in the back of the head.

The murders went unsolved for nearly three years.

In 2012, Haynes swore in an affidavit that Higgs did not force or threaten him into killing any of the victims.

Higgs was executed via lethal injection on January 16, 2021, becoming the thirteenth and final person executed by the federal government during the presidency of Donald Trump, when federal executions returned after a 17-year hiatus.

Trump's presidency ended only four days later.

Higgs remains the most recent person executed by the United States federal government.

A moratorium on federal executions is currently in place.

It was imposed by President Joe Biden's Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2021.