Texas Executes Killer After Appeals Fail

Texas today executed a man for killing his ex-girlfriend and her brother more than two decades ago in Houston. Willie Trottie's lethal injection was carried out about 90 minutes after the Supreme Court rejected his last-day appeals. Trottie, 45, contended he had poor legal help at his trial and questioned the potency of the execution drugs. He also wanted to know more about where the drugs came from, given the recent botched executions elsewhere, reports NBC News.

Trottie had acknowledged shooting 24-year-old Barbara Canada and her 28-year-old brother, Titus, at their parents' Houston home. But Trottie said the May 1993 shootings were accidental and in self-defense, and not worthy of a death sentence. Prosecutors said he had threatened to kill Canada, who had a protective order against him, if she didn't return to him. They said he carried out that threat when barging into the house and opening fire. He becomes the eighth inmate executed in Texas this year. (More death penalty stories.)