Rosendo Rodriguez III, who turned 38 Monday, was convicted of killing a 29-year-old woman, whose battered, naked body was found stuffed into a new piece of luggage and tossed in the trash in 2005. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP)
HUNTSVILLE, Texas – The Latest on the Texas execution of Rosendo Rodriguez (all times local):
5:45 p.m.
The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to block the execution of a Texas prisoner scheduled to die for the slaying of a 29-year-old Lubbock woman whose battered, naked body was stuffed into a new piece of luggage and tossed in the trash.
The high court, without comment, rejected an appeal from attorneys for 38-year-old Rosendo Rodriguez III less than 30 minutes before he was scheduled to be taken to the Texas death chamber Tuesday evening for lethal injection.
His lawyers had questioned the credibility of a medical examiner who testified at Rodriguez's trial about the fatal injuries suffered by Summer Baldwin when she was raped and beaten in 2005. Her body then was folded inside a suitcase and dumped in the trash. The suitcase purchase was tracked back to Rodriguez, who had been in Lubbock for Marine reserve training and was arrested at his parents' home in San Antonio.
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12:05 a.m.
Attorneys for a condemned Texas inmate who became known as the "suitcase killer" are looking to the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his execution for the slaying of a 29-year-old Lubbock woman whose battered, naked body was stuffed into a piece of luggage and tossed in the trash nearly 12 years ago.
Rosendo Rodriguez III, scheduled for lethal injection Tuesday evening, also confessed to killing a 16-year-old Lubbock girl and similarly disposing her body in a suitcase.
He'd be the fourth inmate executed this year in Texas, the nation's busiest death penalty state.
Workers at the Lubbock city landfill in September 2005 discovered the corpse of Summer Baldwin, described in court documents as a prostitute who was 10 weeks pregnant when she was raped and beaten.
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