HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- Condemned killer Kevin Watts quietly went to his death as the criminal justice system he said he detested executed him for a triple slaying 6½ years ago in San Antonio, Texas.
The street gangster received a lethal injection Thursday for fatally shooting three people in the holdup of a Korean restaurant.
Watts, 27, had confessed to the shootings after which one of the victims' newlywed wife was abducted and raped.
Watts had denounced the sentence at the conclusion of his trial in 2003.
Then earlier this year, returning to the court where a jury convicted him of capital murder and decided he should die, Watts confronted the judge scheduling his execution with an obscenity-laced tirade complaining about what he contended was a racist justice system.
But strapped to the death chamber gurney Thursday, his demeanor was subdued. He spoke softly, telling friends he appreciated their love and support and asked them to forgive him.
"I'm out of here, man," he concluded. "I'm gone. Keep me in your hearts."
He was pronounced dead at 6:17 p.m.
Watts walked into the Sam Won Gardens restaurant the morning of March 1, 2002, after a night of drinking and drugs and demanded money. He ordered the manager and two cooks to kneel on the kitchen floor and face a wall. Then he shot each of them in the head.
He forced the manager's wife of two months to retrieve the wallet and keys from her dying husband, grabbed about $100 from a cash register, then drove off with her in the couple's SUV.
The truck was spotted at a nearby apartment complex and police arrested Watts about three hours after the shootings.
None of the victims' relatives attended Watt's execution.
Watts was from San Jose, California. He said when he was about 14 his mother tried to get him away from gangs there and moved him to San Antonio to live with an aunt. But he hooked up with gangs in the Alamo city, dropping out of high school in the ninth grade, he said.
His record included misdemeanor convictions for evading arrest, criminal mischief, trespassing, marijuana possession and driving while intoxicated. He also had a weapons case against him as a 16-year-old.
Watts became the second Texas inmate executed this week and the 11th this year. Two more are set to die next week in the nation's most active capital punishment state.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/10/17/....ap/index.html
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