Texas executes killer who cited Metallica lyrics
Georgia executes man for killing teen
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- A condemned killer who twice avoided death last year was executed Tuesday night as the Supreme Court refused on a 5-4 vote to block the lethal injection.
Troy Kunkle, 38, spent more than half his life on death row for shooting a man and robbing him of $13 in Corpus Christi.
Kunkle was contrite as he looked toward his victim's daughter and son-in-law.
"I would like to ask you to forgive me," he said. "I made a mistake and I am sorry for what I did. All I can do is ask you to forgive me."
The 1984 shooting gained notoriety with disclosures that Kunkle, from San Antonio and then 18, quoted lyrics of a song by the heavy metal rock group Metallica after 31-year-old Stephen Horton was gunned down.
The execution was the second of the year in Texas, the nation's busiest execution state.
The most recent delay for Kunkle came Nov. 18 when the Supreme Court stopped the execution about 40 minutes after he could have been strapped to the gurney. Tuesday's execution date was his sixth.
Kunkle's lawyers contended in his latest appeals that jurors at his trial were not allowed to properly consider his history of alcohol and drug abuse, plus a family history of mental illness and abuse.
According to testimony at Kunkle's capital murder trial, after shooting Horton in the head Kunkle chanted: "Another day, another death, another sorrow, another breath" -- the refrain from the Metallica song "No Remorse" on the album "Kill 'Em All."
Also Tuesday, a man was executed in Georgia for fatally stabbing a teenager and beating him with a baseball bat as he pleaded for his life during a robbery.
Timothy Don Carr, 34, received the injection of chemicals at the state prison in Jackson for killing 17-year-old Keith Patrick Young in 1992.
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