HUNTSVILLE, Texas – Lawyers trying to keep a Texas inmate from execution for a slaying the man claims was accidental have filed multiple appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Richard Masterson's lethal injection Wednesday evening would be the first this year in the nation's busiest death penalty state.
The 43-year-old Masterson was sentenced to death for the January 2001 strangulation of 35-year-old Darin Shane Honeycutt, a female impersonator he'd met at a bar. Masterson testified at his Houston trial the death was the result of an accidental asphyxiation during sex and not an intentional murder.
Evidence showed he stole Honeycutt's car and was arrested more than a week later after stealing another car from a man who survived a similar sex episode in which he said he was choked by Masterson.
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