The Latest on Texas Execution: 67-year-old put to death
Jun 3, 2015, 6:31 PM
6:45 p.m. (CDT)
A 67-year-old man convicted of killing four men more than three decades ago at a North Texas ranch has been executed.
Lester Bower is the oldest prisoner put to death in Texas since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982.
He received a lethal injection Wednesday evening for fatally shooting the four in October 1983 at an airplane hangar on the ranch about 60 miles north of Dallas.
Bower had insisted he was innocent and said the men were alive and well when he left after buying the ultralight airplane. But he couldn’t prove he made the purchase and then lied to authorities when he was questioned.
He’s the eighth Texas inmate put to death this year.
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3:30 p.m. (CDT)
The U.S. Supreme Court will allow the scheduled execution of a 67-year-old Texas man to go ahead.
The high court Wednesday rejected last-ditch appeals from Lester Bower Jr. about 3 hours before he was scheduled to be taken to the Texas death chamber for lethal injection Wednesday evening.
He’d be the oldest Texas prisoner put to death since the nation’s most active death penalty state resumed carrying out executions in 1982.
Bower was convicted of the October 1983 fatal shootings of four men at an airplane hangar on a ranch near Sherman, about 60 miles north of Dallas. Prosecutors say he killed the four after stealing an airplane that he’d been trying to buy from one of the victims.
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12:30 a.m. (CDT)
Condemned inmate Lester Bower Jr. is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to keep him from becoming the oldest Texas prisoner put to death.
The 67-year-old Bower is facing lethal injection Wednesday for the October 1983 fatal shootings of four men at an airplane hangar on a ranch near Sherman, about 60 miles north of Dallas.
He’d be the eighth inmate executed this year in Texas, which carries out capital punishment more than any other state.
Bower always has maintained his innocence, although he initially lied to investigators who used telephone records to identify his involvement related to the sale of an ultralight aircraft owned by one of the victims.
Prosecutors convinced a jury to send him to death row by building a circumstantial case that he stole the aircraft.
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