Health issues aside, Texas executes convicted killer
HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A Texas prisoner accused of four killings and at least nine rapes was executed Wednesday for a 1979 rape and murder in Houston that went unsolved for two decades until he confessed.
Danny Paul Bible, 66, received lethal injection Wednesday evening after appeals contended his health issues made it likely his execution would be botched and cause him unconstitutional pain. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal about an hour before he was put to death without apparent complications.
Asked by the warden ifhehadafinalstatement, Bible replied: “No, sir.”
His head was shaking slightly as the lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital began. His attorneys said Parkinson’s disease was among his ailments.
Despite fears from his attorneys that a vein would not be found for the IVS, prison technicians had one needle inserted in his left hand three minutes after he was strapped to the death chamber gurney. The second IV was inserted in his right hand after another three minutes.
He was pronounced dead at
6:32 p.m., about 15 minutes after the lethal dose started.
Bible’s guilt was not disputed, but his lawyers had proposed he be rolled in his wheelchair in front of a firing squad or be administered nitrogen gas to cut off oxygen to his brain until he stopped breathing.
Bible was arrested in Florida, in 1999 for a rape in Louisiana. He told detectives about four Texas killings — including the death of a 4-month-old boy — and at least nine rapes.