06/02/04

A condemned Texas prison inmate whose body was found on the floor of his death row cell died of natural causes, Texas prison officials said today.

Calvin McGee, 27, of Houston, was convicted of fatally shooting a Texas Southern University administrator during a carjacking in 1997.

McGee was found Sunday in his cell at the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice outside Livingston, about 75 miles northeast of Houston.

Autopsy results Thursday attributed his death to an aneurysm, department spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said.

"At no time did we suspect foul play," she said. "From the beginning it appeared to be death by natural causes. He was found laying on the floor. There was nothing to indicate suicide or foul play."

McGee was convicted of capital murder for the death of Irma Thomas Malloy, 61, fatally shot the night of Oct. 1, 1997, as she was in the drive-through lane of a fast-food restaurant.

Testimony at McGee's trial showed he was with several friends looking for a car to steal when they approached Malloy's white Cadillac at a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant not far from Texas Southern University, where Malloy was dean of education.

She was ordered out of her car, then put her hands to her face and screamed.

McGee told friends he shot her with a .38-caliber pistol he had stolen a few hours earlier because she screamed.

McGee and two others were arrested a day after the shooting after one of them called police and tried to pass himself off as a witness. The two accomplices were convicted and sentenced to prison terms. McGee received a death sentence after a jury deliberated about 8 hours over 2 days.

At his trial, defense attorneys argued he should be spared from a death sentence because he was a product of his background, saying he was physically, sexually and emotionally abused as a child, was slow mentally and from a poor family.

Prosecutors referred to him a "natural-born killer," a liar and manipulator.

McGee's conviction was upheld in 2001 by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. He never had been scheduled for execution.