Killer of Woman, 94, Is Executed

A man convicted of raping and fatally beating a 94-year-old woman who was watering her flowers was executed by injection Thursday.

Domingo Cantu, 31, was the 28th inmate executed in Texas this year and the 82nd nationwide, the most since 83 were put to death in 1952.

Also Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay an hour before Virginia planned to execute a 31-year-old man for robbing and killing a couple in 1993. The justices agreed to hear the appeal of Michael Wayne Williams.

Cantu was convicted of murdering Suda Eller Jones in 1988 outside the home where she had lived in Dallas for 60 years. Cantu insisted he was innocent.

Evidence showed that Cantu beat, raped and sodomized Jones. Her head was repeatedly slammed into concrete.