Man executed in US for 2002 slaying of woman

A man described as a fledgling serial killer by prosecutors was executed Thursday in Texas for a woman's slaying during a break-in at her home a decade ago.

Mario Swain, 33, received lethal injection for killing Lola Nixon, 46, at her home in East Texas' Longview two days after Christmas in 2002. Evidence showed he threw her body into the trunk of her BMW, drove to a remote area outside of the city about 120 miles (193 kilometers) east of Dallas and dumped it in the back seat of an abandoned car.

Swain was asked by a warden if he had a final statement before his punishment. The condemned prisoner shook his head, closed his eyes and took several barely audible breaths.

Within a moment, all movement stopped.  He was pronounced dead 30 minutes later, at 6:39 p.m. CST.

Swain's attorney, James Volberding, said no late attempts were made in the courts to block the execution, the 13th this year in the nation's busiest capital punishment state.

The U.S. Supreme Court last month refused to review the case, and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals last week rejected an appeal that contended a prison expert's testimony during the sentencing phase of Swain's 2003 capital murder trial was false and misleading.

Swain declined media interview requests as his execution date neared.

Nixon was supposed to go to dinner with friends that Friday night after Christmas but didn't show up. When she couldn't be reached the next day, friends called police who found the back door of her home jimmied and blood throughout the place. A neighbor who saw an unfamiliar truck parked on the street the previous night reported that to police and the truck was tracked to Swain.

He initially blamed friends for the burglary, then led police to Nixon's body. Authorities determined she'd been beaten with a tire iron, stabbed and strangled.

The tire iron was recovered from a trash container where Swain said he had thrown it. Evidence showed he used Nixon's credit cards and gave a piece of her stolen jewelry to a friend. Nixon's blood was found on Swain's clothing in the truck, along with her car keys and garage door opener.

According to evidence and testimony at trial, Swain would gather information about women he wanted to rob and then attack them, forcing them to inhale the anesthetic halothane and hitting them over the head with a wrench or shooting them with a stun gun.

Lance Larison, a prosecutor at Swain's trial, called Swain "a serial killer in training."

"A girlfriend told us he kept a list in notebooks of names and license plates of girls he would follow," Larison said. "I think he was working up to something."

It's not clear if Swain knew Nixon. She managed a Longview telephone call center where Swain once worked.

One of Swain's trial lawyers, Rick Hagan, said the evidence and vivid testimony from those who say Swain robbed them hindered the defense's efforts to convince jurors to spare Swain from the death penalty.

Larson said blood evidence in the case was "consistent with a struggle" inside Nixon's home, where she lived alone.

Deborah Hancock told the Longview News-Journal she and her husband were to have dinner with Nixon that night. They stopped by Nixon's house with a carry-out package when she didn't arrive to eat. When their knocks went unanswered, they left the food at her front door.

"I can't believe it's been 10 years," Hancock said. "She was very outgoing and very direct, fun, lively. She was just one of a kind."

Swain's execution is to be followed by two more next week in Texas.

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