PENA DI MORTE: UCCISE PER GELOSIA, GIUSTIZIATO IN TEXAS

Huntsville (Stati Uniti), 12 lug. - Decima esecuzione dall'inizio dell'anno in Texas: la notte scorsa nel penitenziario di Huntsville e' stato ucciso con un'iniezione letale James Wilkens, 39 anni, condannato a morte per un duplice omicidio commesso il giorno di Natale dell'86. Colto da un raptus di gelosia dopo essere stato abbandonato dalla fidanzata, Sandra Williams, l'aggredi' in una roulotte insieme al figlioletto e al suo nuovo compagno: prima assassino' quest'ultimo con un colpo di fucile da caccia alla testa, poi tocco' al bimbo, raggiunto da tredici proiettili; infine rivolse l'arma contro la donna, ferendola gravemente con la convinzione che fosse morta. Alla esecuzione era presente anche lei, e poco prima di ricevere in vena la dose di veleno Wilkens le si e' rivolto implorandola: "Sandy, e tutti voi altri, nel nome di Dio perdonatemi!"

Texas Executes Inmate for 1986 Murder of Man, Boy

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (Reuters) - An inmate who shot a man and a 4-year-old boy to death in a fit of jealousy over a Texas woman was executed by lethal injection on Wednesday.

James Wilkens, 39, apologized as he became the 10th person put to death this year in Texas, the nation's leading state in capital punishment.

``Sandy, all of you, I am sorry. Please hear me. Please, in the name of God, forgive me,'' he said to execution witnesses who included Sandra Williams, the mother of the young shooting victim, Larry McMillan.

``I am truly repentant,'' said Wilkens while strapped to a gurney in the Texas death chamber.

He was condemned for killing the boy and Richard Wood, 28, in Tyler, Texas, on Dec. 27, 1986.

Prosecutors said Wilkens was Williams' ex-boyfriend and was burning with jealousy because she took up with Wood shortly after she and Wilkens broke up.

He lay in wait with a rifle at Wood's mobile home and started firing when the three returned home from a Christmas trip to Oklahoma, they said.

Wilkens shot Wood in the head, killing him, then chased Williams from the trailer and shot her in the hip. While she lay on the ground, pretending to be dead, he went back inside the home and quieted the crying little boy by firing 13 bullets into him, prosecutors said.

For his last meal, Wilkens requested six scrambled eggs, hash brown potatoes with onions, two sausage patties, biscuits with butter, two pints of strawberry cheesecake yogurt, two pitchers of milk and a pint of strawberry ice cream.

He was the 249th person executed in Texas since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982, six years after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a national death penalty ban.

Texas currently has seven more executions scheduled this year.