Texas Man Put to Death for Delivery Woman's Slaying

A Dallas-area man was executed Thursday evening in Texas for the robbery and slaying of a woman who was attacked while delivering food to his parents' home 11 years ago.

Anthony Doyle, 29, was given a lethal injection for the 2003 death of Hyun Mi Cho, who was beaten with a baseball bat, then robbed of her car, cellphone and credit cards. Evidence showed Doyle ordered the doughnuts and breakfast tacos that the 37-year-old Cho delivered. He shared the food with friends after stuffing the woman's body in a neighbor's trash can in an alley behind the home in Rowlett, a suburb just east of Dallas.

Doyle shook his head and said nothing inside the death chamber in Huntsville when a warden asked if he had a statement to make. The prisoner's eyes closed as the sedative pentobarbital was injected. He took a few breaths, then began to snore quietly. Soon, he stopped moving.

He was pronounced dead 25 minutes later, at 6:49 p.m.

No one from Cho's family attended the execution, but two witnesses picked by Doyle -- a friend and a spiritual adviser -- watched as he was put to death.

Doyle became the fourth Texas inmate executed this year and the last before the state -- the nation's most active when it comes to capital punishment -- begins using a new batch of pentobarbital obtained through a different pharmacy.

Prison officials have refused to reveal the source of the replenished stockpile, arguing the information must be kept secret to protect the supplier's safety. But a judge Thursday ordered them to disclose the supplier to attorneys for two inmates set to be executed next month. The attorneys filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking an emergency order requiring state authorities to identify the drug provider and results of tests of its potency and purity.

The prison agency plans to appeal the judge's order.

About two hours before Doyle was put to death, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-day appeal to block his execution. Doyle's attorney had called for his execution to be delayed, but not over the drug issue. The lawyer said Doyle deserved a new punishment hearing because jurors at his 2004 capital murder trial were given unknowingly false evidence about Doyle's inability to be rehabilitated while he was confined at a juvenile detention facility for his delinquent behavior years before Cho's slaying.

Cho, from South Korea, had been in the U.S. about two years when she was killed. Her sister has said Cho was earning money to care for her ill parents.

Police already had been searching for her after she didn't return from the delivery Jan. 16, 2003, and began canvassing homes in the area after a neighbor discovered her body in his trash can.

When officers visited the home of Doyle's parents, his sister told them about a wet brown spot on a carpet. Police then found blood spatter on the ceiling and kitchen walls and a strong odor of bleach and fresh paint. Evidence showed Doyle used barbecue sauce in an attempt to cover the blood and tried to clean the scene and repaint walls.

He was arrested at a friend's home in Dallas. He later told investigators he was under pressure from his girlfriend and others to support his 3-week-old daughter and couldn't get a job. He gave police a 10-page written confession. 

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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