Texas Executes 3rd Man in Week

A condemned man threw a tantrum in his cell but went quietly to his death early today for trying to rape a woman and then burying her alive. He was the third man executed in Texas in a week.

Chester Lee Wicker, who would have turned 38 on Thursday, died for the 1980 slaying of Suzanne C. Knuth, 22, of Beaumont. He was calm just before his death, officials said, but during a brief tantrum in the afternoon he destroyed a small electric fan and stomped on other personal items.