WASHINGTON, 26 GIU - Un uomo condannato a morte per aver ucciso cinque membri della sua famiglia allo scopo di ottenere un'eredita' e' stato giustiziato in serata a Huntsville, nel Texas.

    Robert Coulson, 33 anni, era la 17.a persona ad essere stata messa a morte nel Texas quest'anno e la 272.o da quando, nel 1976, la Corte Suprema riammise la pena capitale.

    Coulson era stato condannato per aver ucciso i genitori, due sorelle e un cognato nella loro casa di Houston 1992. Il motivo era di mettere le mani su un'eredita' di 800.000 dollari.

    La prossima esecuzione nel Texas e' fissata per questa sera, quando Jeffrey Williams, 31 anni, sara' giustiziato per lo stupro e l'omicidio di una donna di Houston nel 1994. 

Houston man executed for killing 5 in family

Professing his innocence, a Houston man accused of murdering 5 members of his family, including his parents, in a scheme to collect an inheritance almost 10 years ago was executed this evening.

 "I'm innocent. I had absolutely nothing to do with my family's murder," Robert Coulson, 33, said, strapped to the death chamber gurney.

 Coulson then thanked those who supported him, adding, "I hope you continue to fight. You know who you are."

 After thanking the warden and as the drugs began taking effect, he spotted Dale Atchetee, a former Houston police officer involved in the murder investigation, and told him, "You know you planted that evidence. You know and I know."

 Coulson gasped slightly and slipped into unconsciousness. He was pronounced dead at 6:23 p.m., 9 minutes after the lethal dose began.

 Coulson was condemned for killing his sister and brother-in-law in a murder spree that also included another sister and his adoptive mother and father. The victims were suffocated or fatally beaten with a crowbar, then bound with tape and plastic ties and burned.

 Firefighters responding to the blaze at the home of Otis Coulson, 66, and his wife, Mary, 54, found the bodies. Also killed were their daughter, Sarah, 21; Robert Coulson's biological sister, Robin Wentworth, 25; and her husband, Richard, 27.

 Robert Coulson attended their funerals a few days after the Nov. 13, 1992, slayings. Hours later, he was arrested for their deaths.

 Evidence showed 2 days after the killings, he called the family attorney, inquiring about the size of the inheritance. It was $600,000.

 "He wanted the money," Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal said.

 Earlier Tuesday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected Coulson's requests for a reprieve, a commutation and a conditional pardon. Vote on each was 17-0.

 "People saw him rub his eyes to make them red but no one saw him shed any tears," Rosenthal recalled Coulson's conduct at the funeral. "We had police officers watch the funeral and watch him. At one point, he walked his girlfriend to her car, watched her drive away, then Bob did this little dance before he went into the church...

 "I think the jury hated him."

 Coulson's roommate at the time of the murders, Jared Althaus, told police he took Coulson to and from the house that day. He later helped investigators build the case.

 "I agreed to assist Bob in this crime because he told me we would never have to worry about money as long as I was with him," Althaus said in his confession.

 "It's infuriating," Coulson said from death row, denying any involvement in the slayings. "I haven't had a fair day in court."

 Coulson called Althaus' confession a lie, saying authorities took advantage of his roommate's mental and emotional problems to force him to lie.

 "It's a bogus case," he insisted.

 Authorities said Coulson, carrying out a plan he and Althaus had worked on for 3 months, telephoned each victim and told them he'd meet them at a particular time at the family's northwest Houston home.

 Then they were systematically killed. Their hands and feet were bound, plastic trash bags were tied over their heads and gasoline was poured on the corpses.

 Althaus said Coulson told him a stun gun purchased to incapacitate the family members didn't work properly after the 1st 2 were killed, so he had to suffocate his mother with a pillow and use a crowbar to fatally beat two others. Then a water heater prematurely ignited the fire because of fumes from gasoline.

 "Bob jumped into the car and said: 'It went all wrong. It didn't go the way I planned it,'" Althaus said.

 Coulson had no previous criminal record. Authorities said he had been having financial problems, a contention Coulson denied. He said a business proposition fell through but not because of his own lack of money.

 "My dad had agreed to loan me the money," he said from death row.

 Althaus was sentenced to 10 years in prison in exchange for his 1994 guilty plea to murder.

 In February 1997, a probate jury assessed $25.6 million in damages against Coulson and Althaus for the killings, but a judge later reduced the verdict to $13.6 million. Lawyers said the monetary award was largely symbolic but resulted in Coulson relinquishing his right to half the $600,000 inheritance.

The inheritance went to Sarah Coulson's son, who she had put up for adoption a month after his birth.

Set to die Wednesday is Jeffrey Lynn Williams, convicted of the 1994 rape-slaying of a Houston woman.

 Coulson becomes the 17th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas, and the 273rd overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December, 1982. Texas executed 17 inmates in 2001.

 Coulson becomes the 34th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 783rd overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1977.