Convicted hit man executed in Texas
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- A convicted hit man who authorities said was paid more than $1,500 to murder a nurse in the 1980s was executed Tuesday.
George Anderson Hopper was given a lethal injection for the 1983 murder of Rozanne Gailiunas, who had been raped, choked with pantyhose, shot twice in the head, and tied naked to a four-post bed.
Hopper had posed as a flower deliveryman to get into his victim's house.
Asked by the warden if he had a final statement, Hopper turned toward four members of the victim's family, including the son who discovered his mother's body, and said he was sorry.
"I have made a lot of mistakes in my life. The things I did changed so many lives. I can't take it back. It was an atrocity. I am sorry. I beg your forgiveness. I know I am not worthy of it," he said, his voice breaking with emotion.
Hopper, a 49-year-old former auto insurance appraiser, was one of about a half-dozen people convicted related to a scheme authorities said was hatched by Dallas socialite Joy Aylor.
Prosecutors said Aylor wanted Rozanne Gailiunas dead because she was dating and planned to marry Aylor's estranged husband.
Aylor fled the country just before her own murder trial, was arrested in France years later and eventually returned to Texas where she was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
The execution was the fourth this year in Texas, and Hopper was one of two killers put to death Tuesday.
In Ohio, a man was executed for fatally stabbing a woman in 1987 then raping her as she bled.
William Smith, 47, claimed a brain abnormality may have affected his behavior when he killed Mary Bradford.
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