Anthony Allen Shore, also known as the “Tourniquet Killer,” reportedly admitted to 60 additional rapes. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP)
The twisted “Tourniquet Killer,” Anthony Shore, reportedly bragged about 60 additional rapes in the weeks before he became the first person to be executed in the United States this year.
Shore, 55, was killed by lethal injected on Jan. 18 in Texas, but he left authorities with as many as 60 new cases before drawing his final breath, The Houston Chronicle reported.
Shore became a registered sex offender in 1998 after it emerged he sexually assaulted two relatives. Accused in the murders of four women, Shore got his “Tourniquet Killer” moniker because of his signature murder technique: using a tourniquet to strangle his victims.
He was sentenced to death for the 1992 killing of Maria del Carmen Estrada, 21, whose body was dumped in the drive-thru of a Houston Dairy Queen.
Shore, a former wrecker driver, said he committed two “copycat assaults” in the 1970s. He claimed he mirrored the assaults to those from the East Area Rapist.
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Shore reportedly told law enforcement officials he went to bars, seduced strangers and drugged them with Rohypnol, also known as the “date-rape drug,” before taking his victims to the back of his van and assaulting them.
Shore told officials he did not remember many details, only that the rape occurred.
A source, who asked not to be identified, told the Houston Chronicle she was “drugged and date-raped” by Shore.
A 2007 book, titled “The Strangler” investigated Shore’s crimes, and Shore's ex-wife told the author, Corey Mitchell, she believed Shore raped and drugged her while they were married.
It was not immediately clear when the alleged rapes occurred and who the victims were. Shore's sisters, however, told The Houston Chronicle they believed he carried out the assaults when he lived in Sacramento, Calif., during the same time as the East Area Rapist's assaults.
"It's entirely possible that him or his friends did a copycat," Gina Shore said.
The Harris County District Attorney’s Office said they were looking into the claims.
Sources told The Houston Chronicle officials believed there were more than 60 rapes committed by Shore.
"I call bull---- on 'There are no others,'" the source said.
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In Shore’s final statement, he was apologetic and his voice cracked with emotion.
"No amount of words or apology could ever undo what I've done," Shore said while strapped to a gurney. "I wish I could undo the past, but it is what it is."
As the lethal dose of pentobarbital began, Shore said the drug burned. "Oooh-ee! I can feel that," he said before slipping into unconsciousness.
He was pronounced dead 13 minutes later.
Shore’s daughter, Tiffany Hall, said she was hurt when she learned her father signed over his estate to a pen pal.
"He was a pretty awful person in life," she said. "So it only follows that he would be an awful person in death."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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