Beunka Adams Executed

HUNTSVILLE (AP) – A Texas man condemned for his role in a robbery in which three people were shot, one fatally, has been put to death. Beunka Adams became the fifth person executed in Texas this year. His lethal injection was carried out Thursday evening in Huntsville. The execution came less than three hours after the U.S. Supreme Court refused a last-day appeal to postpone the punishment. The 29-year-old Adams won a reprieve from a federal district judge earlier this week. But the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the death warrant Wednesday. Adams and another man were sent to death row for the 2002 slaying of Kenneth Vandever, 37, during the holdup of a convenience store outside Rusk. Two female clerks were shot but survived. One of the women was raped.