This story includes a graphic description of crimes committed against an infant. The son of a Texas death row inmate set to be executed this week never got the chance to make it out of infancy, dying at the hands of his own father over a decade ago. There was no one more “extraordinarily beautiful” in the eyes of doting grandmother Carolyn Entriken than her grandson, 3-month-old Alijah James Mullis, who was born in October 2007, according to a March 2011 court transcript obtained by USA TODAY.
“He had steel blue eyes, cute little reddish hair," Entriken told the court. "I know all babies are beautiful ..
. He just was very precious." Entriken did make it out to Houston once before her grandson was tragically killed, spending some time in the area with her daughter, Caren Kohberger, Alijah and the baby’s father, Travis James Mullis .
But on Jan. 29, 2008, Entriken got a phone call no grandmother should ever get, learning from her daughter that Alijah had been killed. She flew out the next morning to be with Kohberger, who was “pretty numb” after the death of her son and a confession from Mullis that he killed and abandoned Alijah at Galveston’s Seawall , a popular tourist destination just south of Houston.
Mullis is scheduled to be executed in Texas on Tuesday, about 16 years after he destroyed the only family he ever knew. Entriken died 14 years after Alijah in 2022, and Alijah's mother declined to be interviewed. As Mullis’ execution approaches, USA TODAY is l.