JUST IN: Texas Executes Death Row Author Cedric Allen Ricks — He Kissed His Baby Goodbye…

“After stabbing his ex-girlfriend and her eight-year-old son, Cedric Ricks was convicted by the Tarrant County jury of capital murder in the deaths of his ex-girlfriend Roxanne Sanchez and her 8-year-old son, Anthony… He washed the blood off his hands, changed his clothes, then walked over to the crib and kissed his baby good night.”

Two people were already gone in the next room. One of them was 8 years old. The man who was supposed to protect that family turned out to be the very thing they needed protection from. This is the Cedric Allen Ricks case, and what you are about to hear is one of the most documented domestic violence cases in North Texas history.

In this documentary, we are covering every chapter: the background, the crime, the forensic evidence, and the full trial—including brain scan evidence presented in open court that almost no coverage of this case has ever reported. A plea deal Ricks rejected before trial. And a witness whose name most people have never heard. A woman who knew exactly who Cedric Ricks was years before Roxanne Sanchez ever met him. Verified, accurate, nothing left out.

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Now, let us start at the beginning.

Early Life and a Pattern of Behavior

Cedric Allen Ricks was born on September 8th, 1974, in Chicago, Illinois. From the outside, he looked like a man who had found his footing. He worked in the healthcare field. He held steady employment. He carried himself in a way that made people around him feel at ease. But the records from his childhood told a different story entirely.

By the time Ricks was eight, school officials were already documenting a pattern of behavior that went beyond ordinary childhood difficulty. Repeated episodes of aggression and defiance that were consistent enough to be flagged formally. Not a single incident, not a rough patch—a pattern beginning early and running forward.

When the 2008 financial crisis hit Illinois, Ricks lost his job and his home. He made the decision to relocate to Bedford, Texas—a midsize suburb positioned between Dallas and Fort Worth—and rebuild from scratch. He found work in the healthcare sector again. He settled into the city. And in Bedford, he met a woman named Roxanne Sanchez.

The Warning Signs: Teshana Singleton

Before we get to Roxanne, there is someone else who needs to be introduced first. Roxanne Sanchez was not the first woman in Cedric Ricks’ life to experience who he truly was behind closed doors. Her name is Teshana Singleton.

Teshana first encountered Cedric Ricks at a church Bible study night. She was 15 years old at the time. Years later, as adults, they reconnected. They eventually married, and what followed during that marriage is now part of the public court record because Teshana Singleton testified about it under oath at Ricks’ capital murder trial. She also later told her full story publicly on the Investigation Discovery series Evil Lives Here.

What Teshana described was not a difficult marriage. It was a dangerous one. During the years they were together, Teshana was subjected to repeated violent attacks by Ricks. She testified at trial that he made attempts on her life more than once before she was finally able to leave. One of those documented incidents took place directly outside a police station. Ricks attacked and choked Teshana while bystanders physically stepped in to stop him. The fact that they were standing outside a police station did not slow him down at all.

Teshana Singleton divorced Cedric Ricks in 2004. They had a son together during the marriage. Her testimony during the penalty phase of the capital murder trial served a very specific purpose for the prosecution: it told the jury that the violence they were being asked to judge did not begin on May 1st, 2013. It had been running for years. Roxanne Sanchez was not the origin of the pattern. She was a continuation of it.

A New Beginning for Roxanne

Roxanne Diane Sanchez was 30 years old. She worked as a medical assistant at a women’s health clinic in Bedford called The Women’s Group. She was a mother of two boys from a previous relationship: Marcus Figueroa was 12 years old, and Anthony Figueroa was 8. Her marriage had ended before Ricks came into the picture. She was doing what people in that position do: working, raising her children, keeping the household moving, and building something forward.

When Ricks entered her life, he moved quickly. He was present. He was attentive. He made specific commitments about Marcus and Anthony—that he would be there for them, that he would show up the way a father is supposed to. He moved into Roxanne’s apartment at the Colonial Village complex on Park Place Avenue in Bedford, Texas. Under Texas law, their arrangement was legally recognized as a common-law marriage.

In 2012, Roxanne gave birth to their son. They named him Isaiah Cedric Ricks. At the time of the murders, Isaiah was 9 months old. Three children were living in that apartment. One woman was holding all of it together, and the man now inside that home had an ex-wife who had already stood in a courtroom and described what he was capable of.

Anthony Figueroa was 8 years old. Marcus Figueroa was 12. Both boys were inside Apartment 1400 the night everything changed. Both had been present in that household long enough to see the shifts in Ricks’ behavior up close. Marcus, in particular, would go on to play a role in this case that most people who follow true crime will never forget once they hear it. Remember their names. Both of them.

Escalation and the Legal System

When Ricks moved into Roxanne’s apartment, people who observed the relationship in its early stages described him the same way: consistently attentive, present, committed to the family. He showed up. He made promises. From the outside, it looked like exactly what Roxanne needed after coming out of a difficult marriage.

But once he was settled, once he had her trust, her home, and her children around him, that version of him began to disappear. The behavior shifted. He worked to separate Roxanne from her wider support network: friends, family, the people she had leaned on. Jealousy replaced attentiveness. Dominance replaced partnership. The household Roxanne had built became something she no longer fully controlled inside her own walls. She recognized it for what it was.

Then, in December 2012, 5 months before the murders, Ricks was formally charged with two criminal offenses in Tarrant County, Texas:

The first charge: Assault of Roxanne Sanchez. The specific allegation was choking.
The second charge: Injury to a child, involving their 9-month-old son, Isaiah.

Both charges were filed. Both were active. Roxanne was the complaining witness. Marcus and Anthony Figueroa were potential witnesses in that same case. After the assault, Roxanne obtained an emergency protective order against Ricks. She took the legal step the system makes available. That order was issued, and it expired in January 2013, 4 months before the murders. It was not renewed.

By the time Ricks arrived at her apartment on the night of May 1st, 2013, there was no active legal barrier between them. She had done everything right. The protection had a time limit. Now, here is the detail that prosecutors would later stand before a jury and argue was the direct motive for everything that followed:

May 1st, 2013. Morning. Tarrant County Courthouse. Ricks appeared before a judge on those December 2012 charges. Roxanne was the complaining witness. Marcus and Anthony were potential witnesses. The case was moving forward. And Ricks was not remanded. He was not held. He walked out of that courthouse a free man. Less than 12 hours later, Roxanne Sanchez and Anthony Figueroa were gone.

The Night of May 1st, 2013

Bedford, Texas. It was a Wednesday evening. Ordinary by every measure. Roxanne Sanchez had taken her three children—Marcus, Anthony, and baby Isaiah—on a routine grocery run to a nearby Walmart, a normal errand on a normal night. What she returned to was anything but.

Cedric Allen Ricks was waiting outside the Colonial Village apartment complex on Park Place Avenue. He had no keys. Roxanne had changed the locks. He had no legal right to be on that property. The active assault case made that clear. None of it stopped him.

A neighbor later told investigators they heard the confrontation beginning outside before Roxanne ever reached her door. Raised voices. Roxanne visibly distressed. She moved her three children through the entrance of Apartment 1400 as quickly as she could. Ricks followed directly behind her. He placed his foot in the doorway so the door could not close.

What happened inside that apartment in the minutes that followed is documented in court records and in the direct trial testimony of Marcus Figueroa. A confrontation broke out between Ricks and Roxanne in the living area. Marcus and Anthony heard it from their bedroom. Both boys came out. According to Marcus’s testimony, they placed themselves in the middle of what was happening—two children trying to intervene between their mother and the man attacking her.

Ricks went to the kitchen. He came back with a knife.

Roxanne Sanchez was attacked. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office later recorded her cause of death as stab wounds to the neck, blunt force injuries to the head, and asphyxia.

Anthony Figueroa was 8 years old. He moved toward Ricks during the attack. He did not survive.

Marcus, 12 years old, ran to his bedroom closet and called 911. He identified Ricks by name. He reported what was happening. Ricks located him. Marcus was stabbed 25 times across his neck, chest, hands, and face. What Marcus did in the moments after is the reason he is alive today. According to his own trial testimony, Marcus made a deliberate decision: he went completely still. He mimicked a sound—the same sound his younger brother Anthony had made before going quiet. When Ricks heard it, he stopped. He believed Marcus was no longer a threat. Marcus did not move. He waited. Then he got up, and he called for help again.

Baby Isaiah, 9 months old, remained in his crib throughout. Ricks did not harm him.

The Aftermath and Arrest

What Ricks did next is where this case takes a turn that stayed with everyone who followed the trial. He did not run. He placed the knife back in the kitchen drawer. He went to the bathroom and washed his hands. He showered. He changed into clean clothes. He bandaged his wounds. He packed a bag with his belongings. Then, he walked to Isaiah’s crib, picked up his 9-month-old son, held him, kissed him, and spent a few minutes with him. He placed the baby back down, and he walked out of the apartment.

He left in Roxanne’s car. He took her cell phone with him. Forensic behavioral analysts described this type of post-incident sequence—the methodical cleaning, the composure, the deliberate packing—as consistent with a calculated mindset rather than uncontrolled emotion. This was not a man reacting in shock. Every action he took after leaving that apartment was measured.

Two 911 calls were made that night:

The first came from inside Apartment 1400. Marcus Figueroa—injured, hiding, and barely holding on—had managed to call before Ricks found him. He gave Ricks’ name. He could not complete the address before the call was cut short.
The second call came later. While driving away from Bedford, Ricks contacted his cousin and her father by phone. He told them directly what he had done. He asked them to go to the apartment and collect baby Isaiah. When the call ended, his cousin did not hesitate. She contacted 911 immediately and reported everything Ricks had said to her, word for word. Both calls were entered into evidence at trial.

The Bedford Police Department arrived at Apartment 1400 approximately 1 hour after Marcus Figueroa’s 911 call. What officers found when they got there stopped them cold. Marcus was near the apartment door, alive but critically injured with 25 stab wounds across his body. He was airlifted immediately to Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth. He survived. He made a full recovery. Baby Isaiah was found in his crib, sick but unharmed.

The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office processed the scene alongside Bedford PD. Among the physical evidence collected was the knife, which had been returned to the kitchen drawer after the attack. Forensic trace evidence gathered at the scene was fully consistent with the account Marcus Figueroa had given to investigators. Every detail he described was supported by what the physical evidence showed.

With Ricks gone and the clock running, investigators needed to find him fast. They contacted Sprint, the carrier for Roxanne’s cell phone, which Ricks had taken when he left. Sprint provided real-time signal data from the phone. The data placed Ricks traveling north through Garvin County, Oklahoma. Based on the direction of travel, investigators determined he was heading toward Illinois, the state he had come from.

Oklahoma law enforcement was immediately alerted with the vehicle description, Ricks’ identity, and the tracked phone coordinates. Shortly after 11:00 p.m., approximately 3 hours after the events in Bedford, two Oklahoma Highway Patrol troopers located Roxanne’s vehicle on the highway, approximately 70 miles north of the Texas-Oklahoma border. They conducted a traffic stop. Cedric Allen Ricks was taken into custody without resistance. He was transported to a local hospital for treatment of lacerations on his hands sustained during the attack. He was then transferred to the Garvin County Jail to await extradition proceedings back to Texas.

He did not go quietly through the extradition process. While held at the Garvin County Jail, Ricks was attacked by other inmates and beaten severely enough to require a second hospitalization. Officials never publicly explained the circumstances of that attack or identified those responsible. After his medical treatment, the extradition process continued and ultimately succeeded.

Ricks was transported back to Tarrant County, Texas. Once inside the Texas jail system, Ricks made a formal request to be housed in a single cell with minimal contact with other inmates. He cited fear for his personal safety as the reason. The man who had shown no restraint toward a mother and her children inside their own home was now asking for protection from the people around him. In Tarrant County, Cedric Allen Ricks was formally charged with two counts of capital murder for the deaths of Roxanne Diane Sanchez and Anthony Figueroa, and one count of attempted murder for the attack on Marcus Figueroa. Prosecutors made their position clear from the outset: they would be pursuing the death penalty.

The Capital Murder Trial

The capital murder trial of Cedric Allen Ricks opened in Tarrant County, Texas, in the spring of 2014. Before a single witness took the stand, prosecutors had already placed an offer on the table: a plea deal for a life sentence in exchange for a guilty plea. Ricks would have avoided the death penalty entirely. He turned it down.

The prosecution built its case on four pillars:

Forensic evidence from the scene, consistent with Marcus Figueroa’s account.
Sprint cell phone data tracking Ricks north through Oklahoma on the night of May 1st.
The road confession reported verbatim to 911 by his own cousin.
The live eyewitness testimony of Marcus Figueroa himself, a 13-year-old boy who had been inside that apartment, survived, and was now sitting in a Tarrant County courtroom prepared to tell the jury everything.

Prosecutors also argued premeditated motive, pointing directly to the December 2012 assault charge and the courthouse appearance the morning of May 1st. They told the jury Ricks knew exactly who the witnesses against him were before he ever arrived at that apartment.

During the penalty phase, Ricks’ own parents took the stand. They told the jury their son had always been prone to violence. They described years of attempted intervention, therapy, a psychiatric facility, physical discipline. Nothing had worked. Their testimony confirmed what the prosecution had been building all along.

Teshana Singleton testified next. She described the repeated violence during their marriage. She told the jury Ricks had attempted to take her life more than once before she divorced him in 2004. One pattern, multiple victims, years apart.

The defense called neuroscientist Dr. Kent Kiehl from the Mind Research Network. Dr. Kiehl presented MRI brain scan evidence from Ricks himself, showing the putamen—a region linked to aggression in neuroscientific research—was measurably larger than in control subjects. The defense presented this as mitigation against the death penalty.

The jury heard all of it. Then Ricks took the stand. He acknowledged the killings. He claimed uncontrolled rage. From the stand, he said, “I don’t know. I don’t know. I wish I could bring them back right now.” He also said, “I don’t want everybody to look at me like I am a monster. I tried to kill myself two or three times, but I cannot even do that right.” The jury deliberated on guilt for less than 1 hour. May 8th, 2014: Guilty on all counts. 7 hours on sentencing. May 16th, 2014: Death.

12 Years on Death Row

Following his sentencing in May 2014, Cedric Allen Ricks was transferred to the Allan B. Polunsky unit in West Livingston, Texas. Polunsky is the facility that houses all male death row inmates in the state. In Texas, condemned inmates live at Polunsky and are only transferred to the Huntsville unit on the day of their scheduled execution. That transfer would not come for nearly 12 years.

12 years is shorter than the national average of approximately 20 years on death row. The reason is straightforward: every appeal Ricks filed was denied. Every one.

His legal team filed four major constitutional challenges over that period:

An ineffective counsel claim: Denied.
A motion to suppress evidence gathered during the investigation: Denied.
A Batson vs. Kentucky challenge: Ricks’ attorneys alleged that prosecutors had removed two potential black jurors during jury selection based on race rather than legitimate case reasoning. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed the challenge in 2024 and denied it.
A shackling challenge based on established Supreme Court precedent that presenting a defendant in shackles before a jury can unfairly influence sentencing deliberations. The US Supreme Court denied that challenge in 2025 without comment or explanation.

Every level of the federal court system that reviewed this case reached the same conclusion. The conviction stood. The sentence stood.

In the days leading up to the execution, Ricks’ mother and family submitted formal requests to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, asking for either a commutation to life in prison or a 90-day reprieve. The Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty also filed a public advocacy statement on his behalf, citing reported spiritual development during his years of incarceration. Both requests were denied.

On the morning of March 11th, 2026, 9 hours before the scheduled execution time, the United States Supreme Court issued its final ruling on Ricks’ remaining appeal. One line, no explanation: Denied.

In his final four days at Polunsky, TDCJ staff documented his routine: sleeping, writing, reading, pacing his cell, using the prison tablet, watching television from the cell door, listening to music, talking with staff and fellow inmates. Visitors came. He declined a phone call from his attorney. He made one personal request before the transfer: a cross necklace, one he had worn throughout his years on death row. Prison records identify Ricks as Jewish. He asked for the cross anyway. He declined a spiritual adviser for the execution.

On March 11th, 2026, Cedric Allen Ricks was transferred from the Allan B. Polunsky unit to the Huntsville unit in Huntsville, Texas. The final chapter of this case was about to begin.

The Execution

The Huntsville unit in Huntsville, Texas, has carried out more confirmed executions than any other prison facility in American history. On March 11th, 2026, Cedric Allen Ricks became one of them.

Seven people were brought into the witness area behind the glass partition that evening:

Roxanne Sanchez’s stepfather and her brother.
Anthony Figueroa’s father, his brother, and his grandmother.
And Marcus Figueroa, now 25 years old.

The boy who had survived 25 stab wounds at the age of 12, who had testified in open court at 13, who had carried this case for 13 years. He stood just feet from the glass and looked into the execution chamber. Witnesses described him as showing no visible emotion. On the back of his neck, above his shirt collar, the scars from the night of May 1st, 2013, were still visible.

When the warden asked Ricks whether he had a final statement, he turned to face the seven people behind the glass and spoke directly to them. His documented words, recorded verbatim by the Associated Press and Fox 4, were as follows:

“I am sorry for taking Roxanne and Anthony away from you. I cannot imagine the pain it has caused. I am glad I am able to say that to you face to face. I hope one day you can find forgiveness in your heart so you do not have to carry the pain anymore.”

He then addressed Marcus specifically:

“To Marcus, I always thought about you. I am sorry that I took your mom and your brother away. I hate that you had to go through that. I am truly sorry for what I have done. I wish you peace and joy. I’m sorry. That is all I can say.”

He closed with this:

“I hope to find Roxanne and Anthony and tell them I am sorry face to face. I hope you all go in peace. I really do.”

His voice broke. A tear formed in his eye. The lethal injection of pentobarbital was administered. According to NBC News witnesses present in the chamber, Ricks took 19 quick breaths followed by 10 snoring sounds, then went completely still. At 6:55 p.m. Central Daylight Time on March 11th, 2026, Cedric Allen Ricks was pronounced dead. He was 51 years old. The second person executed in Texas in 2026, the sixth in the United States that year.

Conclusion

None of the seven witnesses behind the glass spoke to reporters afterward. Marcus Figueroa went to live with his biological father following the conclusion of the case. He was in that witness room on March 11th. He watched. He said nothing to the press.

Baby Isaiah, 9 months old the night his father kissed him goodbye and walked out past two people who were gone, was placed into the custody of Roxanne’s parents, his maternal grandparents. They announced plans to legally adopt him and give him their family name. Away from the name Ricks entirely.

Teshana Singleton had rebuilt her life years before any of this reached a courtroom. She chose to speak publicly. Her testimony mattered.

Anthony Figueroa’s father, brother, and grandmother stood behind that glass on March 11th and watched justice reach its conclusion.

Roxanne Diane Sanchez was 30 years old. She had done everything the system asks of people in her position. She filed the charges. She obtained the protective order. She ended the relationship. The order expired in January 2013. It was not renewed. Four months later, the man it had been issued against walked out of a courthouse on assault charges involving her. And that evening, she was gone.

The case of Cedric Allen Ricks is not only a case about one man. It is a case about what happens in the space between legal protection and actual safety. That space is where Roxanne Sanchez was standing. Roxanne Diane Sanchez. Anthony Figueroa. Their names belong at the end of this documentary, not as entries in a case file, but as people who were here, who mattered, who deserved every year they did not get.

Marcus survived. Isaiah has a new name and a family that chose him. Teshana told the truth under oath when it counted.

(If this documentary gave you something—a detail you had not heard before, a question this case raised for you—drop it in the comments below. I read every single one. And if this channel is new to you, subscribe and turn on notifications. Every case covered here is reported at this level. The full story, every verified detail, nothing left out. I will see you in the next.)