Jan. 26 (UPI) -- The state of Texas on Thursday night executed a man convicted of killing two Subway employees in 2002, the second execution this year in Texas and third in the United States.
Terry Edwards died by lethal injection Thursday around 10 p.m. in Huntsville, nearly four hours after it was scheduled, after the U.S. Supreme Court denied his appeals for a stay.
Edwards had maintained his cousin, Kirk, committed the murders of Tommy Walker and Mickell Goodwin during a robbery of the store while he was in the bathroom. Edwards was convicted of the murders in 2003 and given the death penalty while his cousin is now eligible for parole.
Edwards' final appeals were turned down Thursday morning by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, including one on new evidence that could have reinforced the theory he did not commit the murders, and then by the U.S. Supreme Court not long before he was executed.
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"I made my peace with God," Edwards said before he was given a lethal dose of pentobarbital. "I hope y'all find your peace in this."
Edwards was convicted in 2002 in the shooting death of two employees at the Subway he'd previously worked at while robbing the store with his cousin.
Three weeks after he was fired from the Subway location, Terry Edwards went back with his cousin to rob the store. During the robbery, Walker and Goodwin were fatally shot.
Witnesses said they saw Edwards drop a gun into a nearby garbage can after the robbery, and he was arrested the day of the murders with $3,000 from the store -- lining up with the prosecutors' case that Edwards shot Walker and Goodwin while running out of the restaurant.
Terry's lawyers say he was in the bathroom when Edwards' cousin shot the two employees and ran out, and had witnesses who said they saw Edwards' cousin in the store and then running out.
Edwards' execution was the second conducted in Texas this year, with six more scheduled through July.
