Washington”•Texas Thursday executed a man who killed five family members, including two of his children, in 2002 during what his defense argued was a delirium induced by crack cocaine.
Abel Ochoa, 47, was administered a lethal injection at the Huntsville penitentiary north of Houston and was pronounced dead at 6:48 pm (0048 GMT Friday), Texas prison officials said.
According to court documents, on a Sunday morning after church in August 2002 Ochoa asked his wife for money to buy crack cocaine. Following an argument, she relented and gave him $10.
After smoking the drug Ochoa went into the house, grabbed a gun and shot his wife, their two daughters – ages nine months and seven years old – his father-in-law and a sister-in-law. Another sister-in-law survived the shooting but lost a kidney.
Arrested soon after while driving his wife’s car, Ochoa told the officer “that the gun he used was at his house on the table, that he could not handle the stress anymore, and that he had gotten tired of his life,” according to court documents.
“I want to apologize to my in-laws for causing all this emotional pain,” were among Ochoa’s final words.
Ochoa’s lawyers made a final request Wednesday to the US Supreme Court to halt the execution, arguing that Texas prison authorities had refused to let their client film an interview to accompany a request for pardon.
Ochoa is the third person executed in the United States since the start of the year, and the second in Texas.