Texas judge postpones execution of 'tourniquet killer'
By Jon Herskovitz
AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - A Texas judge postponed the planned execution on Wednesday of a man known as the "tourniquet killer" for the grisly method used to murder five girls and young women in the Houston area who he also raped.
The order from Harris County Judge Maria Jackson to put a 90-day stay on the execution was issued a few hours before Anthony Shore, 55, was set to be put to death by lethal injection at the state's death chamber in Huntsville at 6 p.m. (2300 GMT).
District attorneys in Harris County, which includes Houston, and neighbouring Montgomery County, requested the stay to examine Shore's claim that another death row inmate tried to persuade him to confess to a murder he did not commit, the offices said.
Courts have previously rejected appeals from Shore to spare his life based on arguments that he suffered from brain damage and his execution would violate constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment, court documents showed.
Shore's killing of the five girls and women occurred in the Houston area in the 1980s and 1990s. He strangled his victims with handmade tourniquets, the Texas Attorney General's office and the Harris County District Attorney's office said.
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by James Dalgleish and Tom Brown)
