A man who strangled and stabbed a 72-year-old woman with a screwdriver was put to death in Texas, the state's fourth execution in as many days.
"It's a lot better place where I'm going," Larry Wayne White said in a statement Thursday, moments before lethal drugs were injected into his arm. He was pronounced dead at 6:16 p.m.White, 47, who had a history of preying on elderly women, blamed his problems on a drug habit he said he acquired serving in the Vietnam War.
He was sentenced to die for murdering Elizabeth St. John inside her Houston apartment in March 1977. Prosecutors said he strangled her and then loaded her jewelry, tools, stereo and clothing into her car and fled.