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Juan Garcia was
pronounced dead from a lethal injection at 6:26 p.m. at the
state's execution chamber in Huntsville, a prisons official
said.
The execution was the 529th in Texas since the U.S. Supreme
Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 - the most of any
state.
Garcia, then 18, was found guilty of killing Hugo Solano, 32, in
a 1998 robbery in Houston. Garcia and three accomplices had
launched a violent crime spree in the Houston area, which
included the robbery, the Texas Attorney General's Office said.
"When Solano refused to hand over any money, Garcia shot him
four times in the head and neck, killing him," it said.
In his statement, Garcia sought forgiveness from Solano's
family.
"While I am still alive I bring suffering to you all. The harm
that I did to your dad and husband, I hope this brings you
closure to all of you. I never wanted to hurt any of you all,"
he was quoted as saying by prisons officials.
This month, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended
that the execution go ahead.
None of Garcia's three co-defendants were sentenced to death.
"I never intended to kill him," Garcia told the Houston
Chronicle a few days before the execution. He added he did not
rob Solano of $8 - the aggravating factor that made the crime a
capital offense, the paper reported.
Prosecutors said he stole the money.
"I never intended it to happen the way it happened. I didn't
mean to kill. I had no reason to," Garcia was quoted as saying
by the paper.
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Peter Cooney and Sandra
Maler)
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Texas
executes man who killed Mexican, robbed him of $8
