"Railroad Killer" executed in Texas

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A train-hopping serial killer linked to at least 15 murders near railroad tracks around the country said, "I deserve what I am getting," before he was executed Tuesday night.

Angel Maturino Resendiz mumbled a prayer, saying, "Lord, forgive me, Lord, forgive me," and acknowledged the presence of relatives watching through a nearby window.

"I want to ask if it is in your heart to forgive me," he said as he looked toward the relatives of victims in another room. "You don't have to. I know I allowed the devil to rule my life. ... You did not deserve this. I deserve what I am getting," he said.

Resendiz, 46, was pronounced dead at 6:05 p.m. PDT.

The Mexican drifter known as the "Railroad Killer" was executed for the slaying of Dr. Claudia Benton 7 ½ years ago. She was killed during a deadly spree in 1998 and 1999 that earned Resendiz a spot on the FBI's Most Wanted list as authorities searched for a murderer who slipped across the U.S. border and roamed the country by freight train.

Benton was stabbed with a kitchen knife, bludgeoned with a 2-foot bronze statue and raped in 1998 in her Houston home, just down the street from a railroad track.

The execution was the 13th of the year for Texas.

Meanwhile, a federal appeals court panel lifted a stay of execution granted by one of its own judges, clearing the way for allowing the second execution in Tennessee since 1960 to go forward.

Judge Gilbert Merritt on the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals had issued the stay after a last-minute appeal was delivered to his home in Nashville, Tenn. But Chief Judge Danny Boggs and Judge James Ryan overruled their colleague and lifted the stay order.

Alley, 50, was pronounced dead at 3:12 a.m. EDT today. He was put to death by lethal injection.

Alley confessed to accosting 19-year-old Marine Suzanne Collins in 1985 while she jogged near a Navy base north of Memphis. He claimed at trial to have multiple personalities, but since 2004, he has recanted his confession.