April 7, 2016
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A man convicted of killing and mutilating a 12-year-old boy whose blood he claims he drank was executed by the US state of Texas, authorities said Wednesday.
Pablo Vasquez, 38, was put to death by lethal injection in Huntsville at 1835 (0035 GMT Thursday), Texas penitentiary officials said.
Vasquez, who was 20 at the time of the crime, killed David Cardenas while at a party; he struck the boy in the head with a pipe and slit his throat.
In police transcripts of a videotaped 1998 confession, Vasquez said he heard voices telling him to drink the dead boy's blood.
"The blood was dripping and (I) got it all over my face, so I don't know. I mean, something just told me drink," he said at the time.
His attorneys failed to prove that his actions were prompted by mental illness.
It was Texas's sixth execution this year, of 11 in the United States.
The US executed 28 people in 2015, the lowest figure since 1991, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
