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| Texas killer put to death for Minnesota student's slaying |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 07/29/2005 |
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With the parents of his victim watching through a window a few feet from him, a condemned Texas prisoner quietly went to his death for raping, strangling and slashing their daughter eight years ago at an Austin park. David Martinez, 29, became the 10th inmate executed this year in Texas, which leads the nation in carrying out capital punishment. The lethal injection Thursday evening came moments after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected last-day appeals that sought to block the execution. Martinez was convicted of the July 1997 slaying of Kiersa Paul, 24, a sophomore art student at the University of Minnesota who was visiting her sister in Austin, decided to stay longer and had found a job as a cashier at a bakery. She and Martinez met through mutual friends where they all shot pool at an Austin club. Paul's parents, from Bloomington, Minn., and another of their daughters were among the people in a death chamber witness area. They held hands tightly as Martinez made only brief eye contact with them. He had a short statement, sputtered and gasped before slipping into unconsciousness. "Only the sky and the green grass goes on forever, and today is a good day to die," Martinez said. Eight minutes after the drugs began flowing into his arms, he was pronounced dead. The night she died, Paul told her sister she was going to a popular Austin park along the Barton Creek greenbelt to meet a guy she knew only as "Wolf," which was Martinez's nickname. The next morning her body was found by a jogger. Her wounds included at least eight slashes to her throat and an "X" carved into her chest. Martinez was arrested days later. A Travis County jury deliberated only 15 minutes at his 1998 trial before convicting him of capital murder. Two weeks later, they decided he should be put to death. |
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