Man executed in Texas after 3 decades on death row

Houston: A 67-year-old man convicted of killing of four men more than three decades ago has been executed in Texas, making him the oldest of the 526 prisoners put to death since the American state resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982.

Lester Leroy Bower, one of the longest-serving inmates on Texas' death row, was executed yesterday.

He was convicted of the October 1983 fatal shootings at an airplane hangar on a ranch near Sherman, about 60 miles north of Dallas.

Prosecutors say Bower, a chemical salesman from Arlington, killed the four men after stealing an airplane he'd been trying to buy from one of his victims.

"Much has been written about this case, not all of it has been the truth," Bower said in his final statement.

He thanked his attorneys, his wife, his daughters, family and friends for their "unwavering support."

The execution came about three hours after the US Supreme Court rejected a last-ditch appeal from his lawyers who argued that trial jurors didn't have the opportunity to fully consider that Bower had no previous criminal record.

"This is not a typical death penalty case," his lead lawyer, Peter Buscemi, told the justices, urging a reprieve so the court "has sufficient time" to evaluate the appeal.

Stephen Hoffman, an assistant Texas attorney general, responded that 30 years of litigation was enough and justice already had been delayed "for the four families of the men that Bower slaughtered in cold blood."

His attorneys suggested years later that other men involved in a drug deal gone bad were responsible for the shootings.

Bower's was one of the two executions scheduled for this month. Another is set for June 18 and Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials said they have enough pentobarbital to carry it out.