Alfred Bourgeois was a LaPlace, Louisiana-based truck driver. His two-year daughter, Jakaren Harrison, sometimes traveled with him. While making a delivery to the U.S. Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi, Texas, on July 27, 2002, Bourgeois viciously beat and killed his daughter.
Bourgeois told police and emergency personnel that his daughter had fallen out of his truck. However, post-mortem examination revealed a long history of horrific abuse. That evidence was subsequently corroborated by family members.
Because the murder occurred on a military base, federal charges were filed.
At trial in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, Bourgeois was convicted on March 6, 2004, and sentenced to death.
On appeal, Bourgeois’s defense argued that an intellectual disability made him ineligible for execution. That argument was rejected.
Alfred Bourgeois was executed by lethal injection at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, on December 11, 2020. Bourgeois’s execution was the tenth and last of 2020, making it the most active year of federal executions since 1896.
The Federal Death Penalty Project 