Convicted Killer Executed in Huntsville

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) _ A career rapist blamed for multiple murders and attacks in Houston and Austin has been executed.

Johnny Ray Johnson was condemned for the 1995 slaying of a woman who was raped, beaten and left to die on a Houston street. The victim was Leah Joette Smith.

Johnson, in a lengthy final statement, called for an end to the death penalty. He called Texas death row the “Polunsky dungeon.” The Polunsky Unit houses condemned men.

Johnson said, quote: “It’s life without meaning. It’s life without purpose. It is no life at all.”

He called death row a place of “unforgiveness … terrifying … and debilitating.”

Johnson closed by expressing love to friends who were watching him. “See y’all in heaven,” he said and then began singing a hymn that was cut short as the lethal drugs took effect.

Johnson was the eighth condemned killer put to death this year in Texas.

Convicted Killer Executed in Huntsville

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) _ Texas has executed a parolee convicted of using a baseball bat to fatally bludgeon his girlfriend and her teenage son at their home in San Antonio.

David Martinez was pronounced dead at 6:18 p.m. Wednesday. He had won permission from the courts to stop appeals attempting to spare his life. His lethal injection was the sixth this year in Texas.

Martinez, 36, was on parole after serving five months of a five-year sentence for attempted sexual assault when he was arrested for the slayings of Carolina Prado, 37, and her son, Erik, 14.