By Michael Graczyk
Associated Press
Sunday, August 10, 2008

LIVINGSTON -- Michael Rodriguez remembers the exhilaration of newfound freedom as he rode in the back of a stolen truck, knowing he and six of his buddy convicts had staged an improbably successful escape from a maximum security Texas prison.

Then he recalls seeing his photo on national TV and grasping the reality that their grandiose Hollywood-style plan to rob a Nevada casino had gone terribly awry. He and his fellow fugitives were being hunted everywhere as the killers of a suburban Dallas police officer, Aubrey Hawkins.

This week, Rodriguez, a participant in one of Texas' most notorious prison breaks, is set to become the first of the six surviving members of the infamous "Texas 7" -- all of them now on death row -- to go to the death chamber.

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