Whitehouse Inmate Set to Die for Killing His Mother Gets Reprieve

HUNTSVILLE (AP/Staff) – A Whitehouse man set to die this week for his mother’s slaying more than 11 years ago has won a reprieve from Texas’ highest criminal court. Tracy Beatty, 54, had been scheduled for lethal injection Thursday evening for the death of 62-year-old Carolyn Click in November 2003. Beatty recently had been paroled. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, in a brief order Tuesday, stopped the execution pending further orders from the court. It gave no timetable. Click’s body was found buried near her trailer home outside Tyler. By then, Beatty already was in jail on auto theft and weapons charges. His attorneys argued Beatty had deficient legal help at his 2004 trial and during early appeals and that prosecutors used improper testimony at his trial.