040314 HUNTSVILLE EXECUTION

Описание: Tommy Lynn Sells, 49 was put to death Thursday night after the U.S, Supreme Court rejected demands to release information on the lethal drugs used in the execution. He was the first to be executed with the new supply of pentobarbital to replace TDCJ expired supply.

Refusing to make the last statement the drugs began to flow. Sells took a few breaths, his eyes closed and he began to snore. In less than a minute he stopped moving and was pronounced dead at 6:27 pm just 13 minutes after the drugs began to flow.

A jury convicted Sells of capital murder in 2000 for the death of Kaylene Harris and slashing of her 10-year-old friend, Krystal Surles, who survived and helped police find Sells. The girls were attacked on New Year's Eve 1999 as they slept in the home of Kaylene Harris' family in Del Rio. The Harris family had befriended Sells at a community church.

Court records show Sells claimed to have committed as many as 70 killings across the U.S.In 2003, Sells was indicted but never tried for the slaying of 13-year-old Stephanie Mahaney in Missouri. He also pleaded guilty to capital murder in the 1999 death of 9-year-old Mary Bea Perez, who was strangled during "Fiesta" in San Antonio. She was last seen alive at Market Street Square on April 18, 1999. Prosecutors waived the death penalty in exchange for the plea. Among his other confessions was the slaying of an Illinois family in 1987. Those victims included Ruby Darden, who was eight months pregnant. Her fatal beating forced her to prematurely give birth. The newborn was killed along with her 3-year-old sibling.

Terry Harris, whose 13-year-old daughter, Kaylene Harris, was fatally stabbed by Sells in 1999 in South Texas said the injection was way more gentle than what Sells gave out.. "Basically, the dude just took a nap," he said,

The Supreme Court earlier in the day declined to halt the execution as Sells' attorneys tried to obtain more information from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice about the supplier of the new drug stock. TDCJ officials argued that the pharmacy must be kept secret to protect it from threats of violence.