
Pasadena Murder, 02/11/68: Detectives question an individual, possibly Robert Akridge, in the course of a murder investigation. On December 9, 1966, a sniper fatally shot Dr. Robert Pendleton as he was exiting the Red Bluff General Hospital in Pasadena. Law enforcement arrested Robert Akridge and Delmonte Whitehurst on February 10, 1968. The following day, Harris County authorities extradited Roy Franklin Brashier from Jackson, Mississippi, where he was being held by the Hines County Sheriff's Department. A grand jury indicted all three men on murder charges on February 13. Harris County District Attorney Carol Vance argued that someone hired the trio to commit the crime. Dr. Archie Burkhalter (Pendleton's medical partner), James Oliver Steambarge, and Robert Tucker (an operating room technician) were later charged as accomplices to the murder. Akridge was convicted as the triggerman and sentenced to death. Tucker and Burkhalter were convicted as accomplices, and given 99 years and a life sentence, respectively.