Prisoner executed for killing cellmate

HUNTSVILLE – Condemned Texas prisoner Rogelio Cannady has been executed for killing a cellmate while already serving two life sentences for a double murder.

The 37-year-old Cannady didn’t deny fatally beating his 55-year-old cellmate with a belt and padlock in October 1993. But he insisted the attack at the McConnell Unit prison in South Texas was in self-defense from an unwanted sexual advance.

The lethal injection Wednesday evening made Cannady the 10th inmate put to death this year in the nation’s most active capital punishment state.

Cannady’s execution came after last-day appeals failed in the federal courts. Cannady had argued his original conviction for killing two teenagers was tainted because of a coerced confession.