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Texas Executions Reach Grim Milestone, 400th Prisoner Scheduled to Die
Starting tonight, the state of Texas will execute the first of five death row prisoners scheduled to die by lethal injection over the next 15 days. If all goes according to plan, the number of people killed in the Texas death chamber since the return of the death penalty will surpass 400 by the end of the month.
Kenneth Parr is #399. He is 27 years old. He was convicted of a rape/murder committed a few days after his 18th birthday. The crime was grisly, no doubt. Yet the details of his short life are also disturbing, if depressingly familiar.
According to the International Herald Tribune:"Records show Parr was removed from his mother's custody because he and his siblings were unsupervised, abused by his mother's boyfriends, had no stable parenting, and were exposed to criminal activity and substance abuse."
But mitigating factors don't mean much in the Lone Star State. Barring divine intervention, in a few hours Parr will become the 20th person executed in Texas this year.
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