HUNTSVILLE, Texas – An East Texas man who pleaded guilty to killing a neighbor couple during a shooting rampage 13 years ago appears headed for an execution that he wants.
Barney Fuller Jr. asked that his appeals be dropped to expedite his lethal injection set for Wednesday evening.
The 58-year-old Fuller would be the seventh prisoner executed this year in Texas and the first in six months in the nation's most active death penalty state. It would be only the 16th execution this year nationally amid a downturn in capital punishment.
A federal judge earlier this year ruled Fuller was competent to proceed with his execution for the May 2003 fatal shootings of his neighbors, 43-year-old Nathan Copeland and Copeland's 39-year-old wife, Annette, inside their rural home about 100 miles north of Houston.
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