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His crime stunned even those who do not easily shed a tear and now Robert Sparks, 45, who killed his wife, sons and raped his stepdaughters has been put to death by lethal injection on Wednesday evening.

Sparks, who fatally stabbed his wife in her sleep 18 times, killed his sons – Harold, 9, and Raekwon, 10 – and raped his two stepdaughters was executed despite a last-minute effort to stay his execution.

The September 2007 attack at his Dallas, Texas home saw Sparks stab Raekwon and Harold 45 times in the kitchen leaving them dead.

He did same with their mother in the bedroom and then proceeded to stepdaughters LaKenya Agnew, 14, and Garysha Brown, 12, forcing himself on them and leaving them scarred for life.

Triple murderer and double rapist Robert Sparks is due to be executed at the Huntsville execution chamber in Texas, right, on Wednesday evening Pictures: KSAT/Google Maps

Sparks claimed he committed the dastardly acts because Chare and the boys had tried to poison him, KSAT reported.

Pinning his gruesome murders on insanity, Sparks’ lawyers had prayed the court to remove him from the death row as he suffers from severe mental illnesses.

However, on August 5, U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined a request to cancel the execution, noting that sufficient evidence of Sparks’ alleged mental disability had not been proven by his lawyers.

With his execution 12 years on since the murders, Sparks became the seventh to be executed in Texas and the 16th death row inmate killed in 2019.

Before his expiration, Sparks, from the execution chamber in Huntsville, Texas, said: “Umm, Pamela can you hear me Stephanie, Hardy, Marcus tell all the family I love them.

Inside the death chamber at the state prison in Huntsville, Texas (Image REUTERS)

“I am sorry for the hard times and what hurts me is that I hurt ya’ll too and Patricia she wrote me tell Patricia I wrote her back and to tell ya’ll what I said. I love y’all. I am ready.”

After his killing spree and sexual assault, it was Sparks himself who drove to his ex-girlfriend’s home, telling her he had killed his wife and two stepsons.

He then called the police and confessed, court records showed. He was eventually arrested at Dallas. To prove his justification, Sparks provided blood, hair and fingernail samples, as well as, a cheek swab, to be tested for evidence of poisoning. However, investigators declared there was no ready lab to undertake the test.

Court documents showed Sparks was diagnosed as psychotic with delusions and with schizoaffective disorder.