Texas Executes Killer Diagnosed With Hepatitis C
A convicted killer who dropped his appeals so he would be executed before dying of hepatitis C was put to death by injection Tuesday night.
Richard Wayne Smith, 43, killed a Houston special education teacher who was moonlighting as a convenience store clerk in 1992.
Smith decided last year to drop his appeals so he wouldn’t die from his advancing hepatitis C, a progressive disease that leads to liver cancer, cirrhosis and liver failure.
When a warden asked Smith whether he had a final statement, he said, “No, sir.”
Smith was the 25th person executed in Texas this year and the fourth this month.
Prosecutors said Smith robbed a convenience store where Karen Birky, 38, worked so she could buy supplies for her students. Birky complied with Smith’s demand for money before he walked her into the parking lot, shot her in the neck and fled.
Smith is thought to have contracted hepatitis through a shared heroin needle.
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