Texas inmate executed for killing two women in 2003

A Texas death row inmate has been executed for fatally stabbing an 89-year-old woman and her daughter more than 16 years ago.

Billy Jack Crutsinger entered the women’s Fort Worth home under the pretence of doing some work for them

Crutsinger, 64, received a lethal injection on Wednesday evening at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the 2003 killings of Pearl Magouirk and her 71-year-old daughter Patricia Syren.

Authorities say Crutsinger killed the two women and stole Ms Syren’s car and credit card.

Crutsinger was arrested three days later at a bar in Galveston, more than 300 miles away.

In a final statement that lasted four minutes, Crutsinger thanked three friends who witnessed the execution.

No family members of Magouirk and Syren witnessed the execution. Crutsinger did not mention the two women during his final statement.

As the lethal dose of pentobarbital began, he said he could feel it “in my left arm. It’s kind of burning.”

Thirteen minutes after the lethal dose started, Crutsinger was pronounced dead.

“The defendant stabbed two elderly women to death in their own home. They had offered him a chance at honest work. The loss of mother and daughter Pearl Magouirk and Pat Syren is still felt deeply by their family and the Fort Worth community.

“Our sympathy and thoughts continue to be with them,” Michele Hartmann, one of the prosecutors who convicted Crutsinger, said in a statement.

Crutsinger was the 14th inmate put to death this year in the US and the fifth in Texas, the nation’s busiest capital punishment state.

Ten more executions are scheduled in Texas this year.

The US Supreme Court declined a request by Crutsinger’s attorney to stop the execution.