HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — The Latest on the scheduled execution of a Texas inmate who confessed to four killings (all times local): 3:55 p.m. A judge has for now halted the scheduled execution of a man known as the Houston
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — The Latest on the scheduled execution of a Texas inmate who confessed to four killings (all times local):
3:55 p.m.
A judge has for now halted the scheduled execution of a man known as the Houston area’s “Tourniquet Killer.”
Anthony Allen Shore was to be put to death Wednesday evening for the killings of four female victims, but the judge withdrew the execution warrant just hours before Shore was set to die. The judge was responding to a request from prosecutors who want to further investigate an alleged scheme in which Shore says another death row inmate asked him to confess to his crime.
Shore’s execution is now set for Jan. 18.
Montgomery County District Attorney Bret Ligon has said that investigators from his office spoke with Shore on Tuesday and he told them inmate Larry Swearingen asked him to take the blame for the 1998 killing of 19-year-old Melissa Trotter.
Swearingen was convicted of her slaying and is scheduled to be executed for it on Nov. 16.
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1:45 p.m.
A suburban Houston prosecutor says Anthony Allen Shore has disclosed that a fellow prisoner on Texas’ death row tried to get him to take responsibility for his crime.
Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon tells The Courier newspaper of Montgomery County that convicted killer Larry Swearingen asked Shore to take the blame for the December 1998 abduction and killing of 19-year-old Melissa Trotter.
Swearingen was convicted of her slaying and is set to die Nov. 16.
Shore, who confessed to four slayings and was known as the “Tourniquet Killer,” is scheduled to be executed Wednesday evening.
Ligon says investigators from his office spoke with Shore on Tuesday and he told them he decided to expose the scheme and not cooperate with Swearingen.
The prosecutor says Swearingen tried a similar scheme before his trial for Trotter’s killing.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused an appeal from Swearingen last October. His attorneys have long wanted additional DNA testing of evidence they say could show he didn’t kill Trotter.
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12:05 a.m.
A man who became known as Houston’s “Tourniquet Killer” because of his signature murder technique on four female victims is set for execution in Texas.
Anthony Allen Shore confessed to the four slayings after a tiny particle collected from under the fingernail of a 21-year-old murder victim was matched to his DNA.
His lethal injection Wednesday evening would be the seventh this year in Texas and the 21st nationally. That’s one more than the total number carried out in the U.S. in 2016.
The 1992 slaying of Maria del Carmen Estrada, whose body was dumped in the drive-thru lane of a Houston Dairy Queen, went unsolved for more than a decade. He confessed to killing her and three others, including a 9-year-old and two teenagers. All his victims were Hispanic.
