Texas Executes Rapist-Killer; Third of the Year

HUNTSVILLE, Texas - Texas carried out its third execution of the year on Monday, putting to death a delivery truck driver who raped and killed a 19-year-old waitress nearly two decades ago.

Caruthers Alexander, 39, died from a lethal injection, becoming the 242nd person put to death in Texas since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982.

He requested no final meal and made no last statement before he was executed in the death chamber at the state prison in Huntsville, located about 75 miles (120 km) north of Houston.

Alexander was condemned for the rape and strangulation of Lori Bruch, a married mother of a two-year-old child who worked as a waitress at a San Antonio club.

Bruch's nude and beaten body was found on the morning of April 23, 1981, by a pair of elementary school children on their way to class.

Her wrists and ankles were bound, a gag was stuffed in her mouth and a cord encircled her neck tightly. She was raped and beaten before she was strangled.

She had last been seen about two hours earlier, leaving a restaurant where she ate along with several co-workers from the San Antonio club where she worked.

Witnesses spotted a van near where Bruch's body was found, which matched the description of the one Alexander drove while making deliveries for a medical company.

Police found blood stains matching Bruch's blood inside his van and also an earring that matched one found on her body.

Texas, by far the most active death penalty state in the U.S., last year set a U.S. record for the most executions in a year when it executed 40 people, including one woman.