|
 Raphael Holiday was put to death by lethal injection at the
state's death chamber in Huntsville and pronounced dead at 8:30
p.m., a prisons official said.
He became the 531st inmate executed by Texas since the U.S. Supreme
Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, the most of any state.
"Yes, I would like to thank all of my supporters and loved ones," he
was quoted by prison officials as saying in his last statement.
"I love you, Love y’all, always going to be with y’all. Thank you
Warden," he said.
Holiday was convicted of killing Tierra Lynch, 7; Jasmine DuPaul, 5;
and Justice Holiday, 1, in a rural community about 100 miles (160
km) northwest of Houston.
 He had been living with Tami Wilkerson, his common law wife at the
time, until she secured a restraining order against him for sexually
assaulting Tierra, according to the Texas attorney general's office.
About six months later, Holiday, who had attempted to reconcile with
Wilkerson, returned to the house and forced the girls' grandmother
at gunpoint to douse the home with gasoline, which ignited, it said.
The grandmother survived.
After watching the blaze, he fled the scene in a vehicle and was
caught after a high-speed chase with police. The bodies of the three
girls were later found huddled together in the charred remains of
the home, the office said.
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The U.S. Supreme Court denied a request filed by a new lawyer for
Holiday, who argued his federally appointed counsel had acted
against his wishes and abandoned further rounds of court filings to
spare his life.
Those lawyers told their client further appeals were hopeless and
they did not want to provide false hopes, court papers showed.
The Supreme Court in June denied a request from Holiday's federally
appointed lawyers to put a hold on the execution on grounds that
included problems with his trial.
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Sandra Maler and Clarence
Fernandez)
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Texas
executes man for killing three children in house fire
