Killers Executed Within Two Minutes of Each Other in Texas and Mississippi
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Two men who committed murders during holdups were executed within two minutes of each other early Wednesday in Texas and Mississippi, one by lethal injection and the other by cyanide gas.
John R. Thompson, 32, died by injection at 12:20 a.m. at Huntsville prison in Texas, and Connie Ray Evans, 27, was pronounced dead two minutes later in the gas chamber at Parchman prison in Mississippi.
Both men were denied stays by the Supreme Court about five hours before their executions.
Thompson was executed for the murder of Mary Kneupper, 70, in a 1977 warehouse robbery in San Antonio.
Evans was put to death for the murder of convenience store clerk Arun Pahwa in Jackson during an armed robbery that netted $140 in 1981.
There have been 83 executions in the nation since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Texas leads the nation with 25.
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