HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) _ A Texas man has been put to death for fatally shooting his estranged wife and her boyfriend more than 10 years ago outside Houston.
The lethal injection was carried out Wednesday evening, about an hour after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Keith Thurmond’s appeal to delay the punishment.
Attorneys for Thurmond, 52, argued that lawyers earlier in his appeals process were deficient. They said the lawyers failed to track down background about his abusive childhood and how it could have accounted for his behavior and illustrated his sentence was too harsh.
Thurmond was convicted of fatally shooting his wife, Sharon, and neighbor Guy Fernandes, who had become the woman’s boyfriend.
Thurmond’s 8-year-old son saw his mother getting shot repeatedly.
The execution is the third this year in Texas.
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)