Texas executes man convicted of double murder

Texas executed on Tuesday a prisoner convicted of murdering his wife and her daughter.

Gary Green, 51, received a lethal injection at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville, in the eastern part of the vast southern US state, and was pronounced dead at 7:07 pm (0107 GMT) on Wednesday.

He was sentenced to death in 2010 for having stabbed his wife and drowned her six-year-old daughter in a bathtub in Dallas the year before.

The morning of the murders, his wife had sent Green a letter saying she wanted to break up. He then wrote back that he planned to "take five lives" in response, according to local media.

His wife's two sons, ages nine and 12, survived murder attempts by Green, before he also attempted to kill himself by ingesting large doses of medications.

In the years since his conviction, Green's lawyers have unsuccessfully tried to appeal his death sentence, arguing that he has suffered from psychological problems and intellectual disabilities.

The US Supreme Court has effectively banned capital punishment for offenders who are unable to understand the verdict.

Green and his lawyers have also joined other Texas death row inmates to argue they should not be executed by lethal injection with drugs that may have passed their expiration dates.

Despite a favorable ruling by a judge, three of Green's fellow complainants have already been executed since the beginning of the year.

Arthur Brown, another Texas man convicted of four murders -- which he denies -- is scheduled to be executed on Thursday.

© Agence France-Presse