By Michael Graczyk
The Associated Press
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A convicted killer has been executed in Texas for the abduction, rape and strangulation of a 38-year-old woman 18 years ago.
Thirty-eight-year-old Rodrigo Hernandez received lethal injection Thursday for killing Susan Verstegen more than two hours after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal.
Verstegen was attacked behind a supermarket where she was working. Her body was found dumped in a garbage barrel behind a San Antonio church.
The 1994 slaying went unsolved for eight years until Hernandez, as a requirement for parole from a Michigan prison, submitted a DNA sample that went into a national database and linked him to her death.
DNA also tied Hernandez to a 1991 slaying in Michigan.
Verstege’s son, Charles Monney, says he supports the death penalty, but it won’t bring his mother back.