Court Agrees to Review Death-row Case of Plano Murderer Whose Sentence Caught Pope Francis' Eye

A federal appeals court has agreed to review the case of an Argentine man who is on death row for the 1995 killing of a man abducted from a Collin County supermarket. The decision comes more than two decades after Victor Hugo Saldano, 45, was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to die in 1996 for kidnapping Paul Ray King from a Sack 'n Save in Plano. Saldano and a friend forced King into their car at gunpoint, drove to Lavon Lake and shot him five times. Saldano, a day laborer from Argentina, was 24 years old and in the U.S. illegally when he killed King. His accomplice, Jorge Chavez, is serving a life sentence.The case drew attention from his homeland and Pope Francis, who started corresponding with Saldano's mother, Lidia Guerrero, in 2013and has met with her at least twice. The Catholic Church does not support capital punishment. Argentine journalists covering the six-day trial told The Dallas Morning News in 1996 that Saldano was the first person sentenced to death from Argentina since it won independence from Spain in 1809.  Continue reading...