TEXAS EXECUTES MAN FOR 1998 MURDER

September 5, 2007: Tony Roach, white, 30, was executed this evening in Texas. He was pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m.
On June 8, 1998 Roach broke into the home of Ronnie Dawn Hewitt. He strangled Hewitt using his arm and a belt. After she was dead, Roach confessed that he raped her dead body. He then burglarized her home before setting it on fire with hair spray and a cigarette lighter.
During his trial, the State introduced evidence that about three days before killing Hewitt, Roach robbed and beat a 71-year-old one-legged man, Carroll Doshier, who died of a heart attack after the beating.
Roach, 30, was the 24th condemned inmate put to death this year in Texas, the 39th in the USA and the 1096th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. (Sources: Associated Press & Rick Halperin, 05/09/2007)