The Associated Press via Charleston Gazette
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A man convicted of raping and strangling a woman in 2001 was executed Tuesday in Texas, becoming the state’s first inmate put to death using a new three-drug combination.
Cary Kerr, 46, expressed love and thanks to friends and relatives, then insisted he wasn’t responsible for the crime outside Fort Worth.
“To the state of Texas, I am an innocent man,” Kerr said. “Never trust a court-appointed attorney.”
Kerr’s reaction to the chemicals was similar to most of the 466 inmates executed in Texas since 1982 under the previous drug combination.
“Here we go,” he said after a deep breath. He took two more deep breaths, then uttered “Lord Jesus, Jesus,” the final words slurred.
He was pronounced dead at 6:19 p.m. CDT, nine minutes after the drugs began flowing into his arms.
A late appeal rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court did not challenge the drug switch in the nation’s most active capital punishment state. Instead, it focused on a claim that one of his lawyers earlier had failed him during appeals of his conviction and death sentence.
The three-drug chemical “cocktail” in his lethal injection used the sedative pentobarbital instead of sodium thiopental. Texas recently switched from sodium thiopental, a drug it used since 1982, because it is no longer available. Pentobarbital already had been used for executions in Oklahoma and Ohio and survived legal challenges there.
The body of 34-year-old Pamela Horton was found dumped in a street. Kerr said he first met Horton when they lived in the same trailer park, then ran into her the evening of July 11, 2001, at a bar where he was celebrating passing the test to get his commercial truck driving license.
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