The US state of Texas executed a man on Thursday for killing a woman during a break in at the victim’s home a decade ago, authorities said.
Mario Swain, 33, was pronounced dead by lethal injection at 6:39 pm (0039 GMT Friday), according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. He had no final statement.
Swain’s death brought to 37 the number of executions in the United States this year.
Swain, an African American, was sentenced to death in 2004 for the murder two years earlier of Lola Nixon. While breaking into her home, he hit her on the head with an object and then placed her body in the trunk of his car before dumping it, according to legal documents.
His execution was the 490th in Texas since capital punishment was reinstated there in 1976.
Swain was the 13th person put to death so far this year alone in the state responsible for a third of the country’s executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
A court of appeals meanwhile granted a 14-day stay of the execution of Hubert Michael, 56, who was scheduled to be put to death in the state of Pennsylvania on Thursday evening. Late Thursday, the US Supreme Court denied an appeal by the state to vacate the stay.
Michael, who has spent 17 years on death row and whose execution would have been the state’s first since 1999, was sentenced to death for the kidnapping and murder of a 16-year-old girl in 1993.
Texas executes man for killing woman in 2002
