A Texas death row inmate who has always maintained his innocence and contends his conviction was based on junk science is set to be executed for the abduction, rape and murder of a suburban Houston college student more than 20 years ago.
Larry Swearingen, 48, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection Wednesday evening for the December 1998 killing of Melissa Trotter. The 19-year-old was last seen leaving her community college in Conroe, and her body was found nearly a month later in a forest near Huntsville, about 70 miles north of Houston.
Prosecutors said they stand behind the “mountain of evidence” used to convict Swearingen in 2000. They described him as a sociopath with a criminal history of violence against women and said he tried to get a fellow death row inmate to take credit for his crime.
Swearingen’s attorneys late Tuesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the execution. They allege prosecutors used “false and misleading testimony” related to blood evidence and a piece of pantyhose used to strangle Trotter. Swearingen, who is also represented by the Innocence Project, has previously received five stays of execution.