THE US STATE of Texas executed an inmate yesterday evening, nine years after he took part in a week-long crime spree that included two murders.

Mark Soliz, 37, was pronounced dead at 6.32 pm, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said in a statement.

In his last words, Soliz apologised “for the grief and the pain that I caused,” the statement said.

In June 2010, Soliz, who had already been convicted of theft several times, stole several weapons during a robbery with an accomplice named Jose Ramos.

The following week, the two men robbed several people, wounded a man and killed the driver of a delivery truck in a parking lot. That same day, the crime spree ended when they broke into the home of a 61-year-old woman and murdered her.

At his 2012 trial, Soliz’s lawyers pointed to his difficult childhood, marked by alcohol and violence, and his impaired mental state due to foetal alcohol syndrome.

Nevertheless, it took less than an hour for the jury to sentence him to death.

Soliz’s supporters had appealed his case on the same grounds up to the US Supreme Court, with no success.

Soliz’s accomplice Ramos, who pleaded guilty, is serving a sentence of life imprisonment.

Soliz was the 15th death row inmate executed in the United States this year, and the sixth in Texas.

- © AFP 2019