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Mario Swain
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Huntsville, TX - A man described as a fledgling serial killer by prosecutors has been executed in Texas.
Thirty-three-year-old Mario Swain received a lethal injection Thursday evening for an East Texas woman's slaying during a break-in at her home a decade ago.
Lola Nixon of Longview was attacked with a tire iron, stabbed and strangled two days after Christmas in 2002. The 46-year-old woman's body was found in an abandoned car in a remote area outside the city 120 miles east of Dallas.
Earlier this year, a federal appeals court rejected Swain's appeal that argued his confessions to the slaying should not have been allowed at trial, that his lawyers were deficient and that there was a problem in jury selection.
The U.S. Supreme Court three weeks ago refused to review Swain's case. And last week the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals refused an appeal challenging an investigator's trial testimony.
Nixon was unmarried and lived alone. She had been a supervisor at a telephone call center in Longview where Swain once worked.
Swain declined from death row to speak with reporters as his execution date neared.
Swain's execution is to be followed by 2 more next week in Texas.
Swain becomes the 13th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in Texas
and the 490th overall since the state resumed capital punishmen on december 7,
1982. Swain also becomes the 251st overall since Rick Perry became Governor of
Texas in 2001.
Swain becomes the 37th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the USA
and the 1314th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17, 1977.
Source: AP, Rick Halperin, November 8, 2012
