This time the phone didn't ring in the death chamber for Richard Pruitt, and the State of Texas executed the convicted killer for the murder of the guard in the McConnell Prison Unit near Beeville back in 1999, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Pruitt repeatedly stabbed Officer Daniel Nagle with a metal rod wrapped in duct tape. Nagle died of a heart attack which the coroner said was caused by the attack.
Prison spokesman Robert Hurst told News Radio 1200 WOAI there were plenty of prison guards at the Walls Unit in Huntsville for the execution.
"From the Huntsville area as well as from Beeville, where the homicide occurred, who were here outside of the Huntsville unit in support of Officer Nagle's family," Hurst said. "They were greeted by Nagle's family after the execution was completed."
Pruitt argued repeatedly that he was set up, that fellow inmates he had been feuding with killed the guard and pinned it on him. At one point, Pruitt even claimed that 'corrupt prison officials' could have done it.
Pruitt's lawyers were arguing until literally the last minute that the execution should be halted so additional DNA testing, which they said would absolve Pruitt from guilt, could be conducted.
Hurst says Pruitt, was serving a 99 year old term for stabbing a neighbor to death in his home town of Channelview, near Houston, back in 1995, made quite a speech before the poison began to flow.
"Life doens't end here, it goes on forever," Hurst quoted Pruitt as saying from the gurney. "I've had to learn lessons in life the hard way, one day there won't be a need to hurt people. I love you all so much, I'm ready to go, but I'll be back."