TEXAS. MAN EXECUTED FOR RAPE, MURDER OF TWO TEENS

July 11, 2006: Derrick O'Brien was put to death by lethal injection for his part in the 1993 gang-rape and murder of two Houston teenagers. O'Brien, 31, was condemned for raping and killing Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth Pena, 16, in a Houston park on June 24, 1993. Prosecutors said O'Brien was one of six gang members who raped Ertman and Pena for over an hour in a Houston park before strangling them. The girls were taking a shortcut home through the park when they were attacked. O'Brien told police he helped strangle Ertman with his belt, which snapped from the strain put on it during the murder.
O'Brien's execution was delayed in May after his lawyers claimed lethal injection violates the US Constitution's ban on cruel or unusual punishment. The claim was rejected by a Texas appeals court.
While strapped to a gurney in the death chamber on Tuesday, O'Brien apologized to Ertman's and Pena's families.
"I am sorry," he said. "I have always been sorry. It is the worst mistake that I ever made in my whole life. Not because I am here, but because of what I did, and I hurt a lot of people -- you and my family. I am sorry. I have always been sorry."
O'Brien was the 14th person executed in Texas this year and the 369th put to death since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982, six years after the US Supreme Court lifted a national death penalty ban. Both totals lead the nation. (Sources: Reuters, 11/07/2006)