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TEXAS (USA): TOMMY LYNN SELLS EXECUTED
April 3, 2014: Tommy Lynn Sells, 49, White, a serial killer, was executed for the 1999 death of Kayleen Harris.
He became the 1st inmate injected with a dose of newly replenished pentobarbital that Texas prison officials obtained to replace an expired supply of the sedative.
Sells was suspected in up to 70 murders and connected to at least 15. He was known as "Coast-to-Coast" for his serial killings spanning the nation.
Sells murdered Kayleen Harris after he broke into the 13-year-old's bedroom on New Year's Eve 1999. Sells also slashed the throat of her friend, Krystal Surles, 10, but Surles survived. Surles was able to identify Sells as the killer during testimony leading to his 2000 death row conviction. Sells murdered Mary Bea Perez, 9, after he kidnapped her in April 1999. He received a life sentence in 2003 for her death.
Sells and another Texas death row inmate filed a lawsuit in March demanding to know the name of the supplier of the drugs used during the lethal injection. The case went before the Texas Supreme Court. Yesterday Sells filed another lawsuit that would have delayed his execution until the resolution of the first lawsuit. U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore ordered to block the execution. Hours later, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Gilmore's decision, and the Supreme Court rejected Sell’s last minute appeal.
Sells becomes the 5th inmate to be put to death this year in Texas, the 513th overall since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982, the 15th to be put to death this year in the USA and the 1374th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977. (Sources: Associated Press & Rick Alpherin, 03/04/2014)
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