[3] The main contention was that Higgs did not personally kill any of the three victims, but waited in a vehicle nearby.

The man who shot them, Willis Mark Haynes, was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole plus 45 years.

The six of them traveled in Higgs' vehicle, a blue Mazda MPV van, and returned to his apartment to drink alcohol, smoke marijuana, and listen to music.

Neighbors in the area reported hearing and seeing the three women laughing and talking in the early hours of that morning.

Haynes then fatally shot each of the three women with a silver .38 caliber pistol before returning to the van and closing the door.

Early on January 27, a passing motorist found the women's bodies and contacted the Park Police.

Jackson's day planner was found at the scene with Higgs' nickname and telephone number recorded in it.

On December 21, Higgs and Haynes were indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of first degree murder, kidnapping resulting in death, and use of a firearm during a crime of violence.

Gloria pleaded guilty to being an accessory-after-the-fact to the killings and, in exchange for testimony against Higgs and Haynes, was sentenced to seven years in prison.

[20] The prosecution's version of events was that Higgs got into a heated argument with Tanji Jackson at his apartment on the evening of January 26, 1996.

Jackson had supposedly taken a knife from the kitchen and threatened Higgs after she rejected his alleged sexual advances towards her.

After the women were killed and the gun was disposed of, Higgs drove back to his apartment with Haynes and Gloria.

[17] The defense argued that Higgs' alleged reason for wanting the women killed — Jackson rejecting his sexual advances and possibly knowing people who may have retaliated against him — was a very weak motive for ordering three murders.

[21] The defense claims that the real reason the women were killed was because they owed Haynes and some of his associates drug money.

Two inmates at the Charles County Detention Center said Haynes had claimed to them to have a much bigger role in the killings.

The evidence would supposedly have made both Haynes and Higgs equally culpable in the eyes of the jury, and the failure to provide the statements violated the Brady rule.

[26] In April 1997, in a Maryland state court, Higgs submitted a guilty plea to reckless endangerment and assault charges.

The case against him was mainly built on the testimonies of Gloria and Haynes, who had both cut deals and changed their stories multiple times.

Had the murders occurred farther down the same road, the women would not have been killed on the Patuxent Research Refuge, and Higgs would have been tried only by the state of Maryland and not by the federal government.

[36] Higgs's attorney raised the concern that COVID-19 had caused him lung damage, and that during the execution, he would experience "a sensation of drowning akin to waterboarding.

[39][40] At 1:23 a.m. on January 16, 2021, Higgs, 48, was executed by lethal injection of pentobarbital at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana.

[41] Higgs was the thirteenth and final person executed by the United States federal government during the first presidency of Donald Trump.