WASHINGTON - Texas on Wednesday executed Tony Roach, 30, for murdering and raping a woman during a robbery, prison authorities in the southern state said.
Roach was sentenced to death after being convicted of beating and strangling to death Ronnie Hewitt at her home in Amarillo, northern Texas, and then raping her before setting fire to the house, according to documents from the prison in Hunstville, Texas.
He was 21 at the time of the killing in 1998 and had a history of arrests for violent robberies.
His was the 39th judicial killing in the United States this year and the 403rd in Texas since the resintatement of the death penalty in 1976. Nearly two thirds of the condemned have been executed in Texas.
More than 3,300 convicts are awaiting execution on death row across the country.
fc/rlp/ksh
09/05/2007 23:39 GMT