Texas executes convicted killer of suburban Houston nurse during home robbery

Texas executes killer of Houston-area nurse

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A convicted killer was executed by lethal injection Thursday evening for gunning down a nurse at her suburban Houston home nine years ago and stealing her car.

Michael James Perry, 28, mouthed to relatives and friends watching through a window that he loved them.

“I want to start off to everyone involved in this atrocity, they’re all forgiven by me,” he said in a brief statement from the death chamber gurney. He never acknowledged relatives of his victim who looked through an adjacent window.

Perry was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m., making him the 14th prisoner executed this year in Texas, the nation’s most active death penalty state.

The U.S. Supreme Court, about 90 minutes before Perry’s execution, rejected a last-day appeal from his lawyers. They unsuccessfully argued they had new evidence showing Perry was already in jail when 50-year-old Sandra Stotler was murdered in 2001 at her home near Conroe, Texas. They also contended a co-defendant and friend of Perry’s killed Stotler.

Prosecutors said a “mountain of evidence” pointed to Perry — most notably that he was seen driving Stotler’s car and bragged about the killing before his arrest.

Associated Press reporter Michael Graczyk contributed to this report.