Texas Executes Inmate Who Killed Great Aunt

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) – A Texas man convicted of fatally beating his 83-year-old great aunt more than two decades ago was executed Wednesday evening without media witnesses present because prison agency officials neglected to notify reporters it was time to carry out the punishment. Quintin Jones received the lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the September 1999 killing of Berthena Bryant, agency spokesman Jeremy Desel said about 30 minutes after Jones was pronounced dead. Desel said the execution, the first in Texas in nearly a year, included a number of new personnel who have never participated in the process.