Texas Executes Busby Jr., 600th Since 1982

Texas executed Edward Busby Jr. by lethal injection Thursday evening at the Huntsville Unit penitentiary, marking the state's 600th execution since resuming capital punishment in 1982 and the fourth this year. Busby, 59, was pronounced dead at 8:11 p.m. following his conviction in the 2004 suffocation death of 77-year-old retired Texas Christian University professor Laura Lee Crane.

Prosecutors said Busby and codefendant Kathleen Latimer abducted Crane from a Fort Worth grocery store parking lot in January 2004, placed her in the trunk of her car and drove into Oklahoma. Crane suffocated after 23 feet of duct tape covered her mouth and nose. Busby was arrested days later in Oklahoma City driving her car and led authorities to her body just north of the Texas border. He told investigators that Latimer instigated the abduction and taping and that he never intended for Crane to be harmed. Latimer is serving a life sentence for murder.

The execution proceeded hours after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling lifting a stay granted last week by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review Busby's intellectual disability claim. His attorneys argued the execution violated the...