WASHINGTON, 16 MAG - Nel carcere di Huntsville, nel Texas, e' stata eseguita in serata la condanna a morte di un omicida che nel 1986 aveva ucciso un adolescente di 16 anni, nel giorno del suo compleanno, accoltellandolo piu' volte con un coltello da macellaio durante una rapina nella sua casa, a Dallas.

Bruce Charles Jacobs, 56 anni, ha subito l'iniezione letale ed e' cosi' divenuto il 15/o condannato messo a morte quest'anno in Texas e il 304/o da quando le esecuzioni nello Stato sono riprese nel 1982 dopo una moratoria.

Al momento del delitto, Jacobs aveva gia' un passato di condanne e di violenze. Prima di morire, l'uomo ha recitato  alcuni passaggi della Bibbia. 

TEXAS: Convicted killer of Dallas teen executed

Convicted killer Bruce Charles Jacobs was executed tonight for using a butcher knife to fatally hack a Dallas boy on the victim's 16th birthday almost 17 years ago.

Jacobs recited by memory as his last statement the 23rd Psalm that begins "The Lord is my shepherd" and ends with "I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

Raising his head off the gurney and turning to four friends watching from an adjacent room, Jacobs thanked them for "being there with me all these years and supporting me." He also thanked the media for "being nice to me," then urged his friends to "take care of yourself and y'all stay strong."

At 6:17 p.m., 6 minutes after the lethal drugs began flowing, he was pronounced dead.

Jacobs, 56, was condemned for the slaying of Conrad Harris at the teenager's home near Southern Methodist University July 22, 1986.

A medical examiner testified Harris had been stabbed at least 24 times in an "overkill" and lost half of his blood supply in the attack. Part of the knife blade was broken in the frenzy and was imbedded in the boy's body.

"This is one of those cases, if there was ever a death penalty case, in my mind this is one," Day Haygood, one of the prosecutors at Jacobs' trial, recalled this week. "The most horrific part was his father heard the boy screaming and found Jacobs cutting him."

With Hugh Harris providing the eyewitness identification of Jacobs as his son's killer, a Dallas County jury convicted Jacobs of capital murder and decided he should be put to death.

"He's a brutal murderer without a conscience," Harris told The Dallas Morning News in a story published Thursday. "I'll be satisfied to see the circle closed."

Jacobs, who worked mostly as a dishwasher and had a criminal history of violence with knives and razor blades, acknowledged he was in the Harris house at 6:30 that morning but said another intruder in the house at the same time was to blame for the killing.

"I'm going to get executed for something I didn't do," he said recently from death row. "Somebody jumped me from behind... I left and went home. I didn't know there was a murder until 3 days later."

The victim's stepmother, Holly Kuper, told authorities a man matching Jacobs' description tried to push his way into her house the morning before the murder but she managed to get the door locked and called police.

"Our theory was Bruce came back the next night and meant to assault her but the father was home and he just turned his attention to killing the boy," Haygood said.

Harris and his wife gave police information for a sketch of the suspect and a taxi driver told authorities the drawing looked like a customer he had the morning of the killing. Jacobs was remembered for his beard and a Panama hat that he wore.

Jacobs, still wearing the hat but recently shaven, was arrested inside a convenience store.

At his Dallas apartment, police found a $100 bill identified as missing from Kuper's purse. Jacobs' fingerprints were found on other knives at the Harris home.

No late appeals to the courts were filed. Jacobs' lawyer said his client was mentally ill but couldn't prove he was mentally retarded, which would make him ineligible for execution under a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year.

"He has this fantasy that somehow he had this relationship with the victim's mother, which is simply not true," James Volberding said. "We have never been able to get at the bottom of how his mind works or fails to work. Although I'm convinced he's mentally ill, there's nothing I can do to prove that that's sufficient to stop his execution."

When he was 14, an intelligence test put Jacobs' IQ at 77 while subsequent testing over the years put his IQ somewhat higher. Someone with an IQ less than 70 generally is considered retarded.

"People tell me I'm slow," Jacobs, a 10th-grade dropout, said from death row.

At his trial, jurors heard from witnesses who told of Jacobs at age 16 stabbing a 12-year-old girl with a steak knife during an assault. While in a juvenile lockup, he beat another person with an ax handle. In 1967, he was taken into custody after holding a razor blade to a girl's neck during a robbery. In the early 1970s, he served time in Oregon for assault and was caught with a razor-tipped broom in his cell.

Jacobs becomes the 15th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas, and the 304th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982. At least 10 more condemned men have serious execution dates between June 11 and August 7.

Jacobs becomes the 65th condemned inmate to be put to death in Texas since Rick Perry Perry became governor in 2001.

Jacobs becomes the 33rd condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA and the 853rd overall since America resumed executions on January 17, 1977.