HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — In the state's second execution in as many days, a former mechanic was put to death Thursday for robbing and fatally shooting a man.
Richard Cartwright, 31, thanked friends and family for their support before he was given a lethal injection.
"I want to apologize to the victim's family for any pain and suffering I caused them," he said. Then he urged his fellow death row inmates to "just keep your heads up and stay strong."
Cartwright and two other men duped the victim, Nick Moraida, 37, into thinking they were homosexuals offering to share beer with him at a park along Corpus Christi Bay in 1996. Instead, Moraida was stabbed then shot to death while being robbed of his watch and wallet.
Kelly Overstreet, 27, and Dennis Hagood, 28, testified against Cartwright and are serving long prison terms, but Overstreet recanted much of his testimony earlier this month.
"I intentionally made Cartwright out to be the bad guy out of spite when in fact I am the one who was at the forefront of all events," Overstreet wrote in a statement to Cartwright's lawyers.
State attorneys called Overstreet's new statements "inherently unreliable."
Cartwright was the eighth Texas prisoner put to death this year. On Wednesday, Bryan Wolfe, 44, was executed for the 1992 robbery-slaying of an 84-year-old woman who babysat his children.