Texan Jokes as He Is Executed for Hiring His Wife’s Killer
Joking and reciting a poem, a man was executed by lethal injection Friday for hiring a person through a magazine ad to kill his wife.
While strapped to a gurney in the death chamber, Robert Black, 45, greeted reporters, relatives and his attorney. “I look stretched out like a cooked goose,” he said with a laugh.
When officials were ready to proceed, Black began reciting the poem “High Flight,” which includes verses that glorify a pilot’s thoughts of freedom as he soars through the air.
Black, who found gunman John Wayne Hearn though a classified ad in Soldier of Fortune magazine, became the 50th convicted killer executed in Texas since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982. The total is the highest in the nation.
Hearn pleaded guilty to fatally shooting Sandra Black and testified against her husband in exchange for a life prison term.
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