Killer of 93-year-old woman in $10 burglary to die

HUNTSVILLE (AP) — Widespread power shortages in the Huntsville area were not affecting the scheduled execution of a Texas prisoner condemned for killing an elderly woman 10 years ago.

Former auto mechanic and laborer William Murray, 39, was set to die Wednesday evening. The execution would be the ninth this year in the nation's most active capital punishment state.

The Huntsville Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, where lethal injections are carried out, had power, agency spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said.

Murray's appeals were exhausted and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles uanimously rejected a clemency request filed by his attorney, J. Stephen Bush, who acknowledged the attempt was "a very long shot."

Murray was condemned for the 1998 strangling and rape of 93-year-old Rena Ratcliff during a burglary at her home in Kaufman County, just outside Dallas.

Evidence at his trial showed he'd been responsible for at least a dozen burglaries in his home area of Kaufman County, earning him a 10-year prison term. But he was released on probation just three months after going to prison.

Three months later, Ratcliff was killed in a burglary that got Murray less than $10 from a jar of change and a brown-handled knife he later swapped for drugs.