Texas Executes Gang Enforcer for Murder

A Mexican gang member was executed Wednesday night in Texas for strangling to death a woman who refused to pay a tax on her illegal drug sales.

The lethal injection of Manuel Vasquez, 46, left Texas prison officials with only enough pentobarbital to execute one more prisoner, scheduled for March 18 in the most active death penalty state.

"We are exploring all options, including the continued use of pentobarbital or other drug(s) to use in the lethal injection process," Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark told Agence France Presse.

Vasquez was pronounced dead at 6:32 pm (2332 GMT) in the Huntsville prison execution chamber, Texas prison authorities said.

He had no appeals before the courts.

"I'd rather go than being locked 24/7 in a cell like this," he told British television station ITV.

His marked the ninth execution this year in the United States, and the fourth in Texas.

Vasquez was sentenced to death in 1999 for killing 51-year-old Juanita Ybarra, by strangling her with a telephone cord. 

One of Vasquez's accomplices, Johnny Cruz, testified against him and got a seven-year sentence in a plea deal.

Mexican mafia boss Rene Munoz had ordered three men -- Vasquez, Cruz and Oligario Lujan, who is serving a 35-year prison term -- to kill Ybarra for refusing to pay a dime, or 10 percent tax on drug sales.

After a night of drinking, the three men descended on Ybarra's hotel room early on March 19, 1998, and Vasquez strangled her, according to testimony provided by her boyfriend, who survived the attack.