'Suitcase Killer' executed for killing Texas woman, stuffing body into luggage
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Texas inmate Rosendo Rodriguez is on death row for the brutal 2005 murder of a pregnant prostitute in Lubbock, Texas. (Associated Press)
A Texas man who was on death row for the murder of a pregnant Lubbock woman was executed on Tuesday.
Rosendo Rodriguez III, dubbed the "Suitcase Killer," was sentenced to death in the 2005 slaying of 29-year-old Summer Baldwin, a pregnant prostitute whose naked and battered body was found inside of a new suitcase in a Lubbock city landfill.
Investigators tracked down the luggage purchase to Rodriguez, a 38-year-old Marine reservist who was in Lubbock for training.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}He also confessed to killing a 16-year-old girl, also from Lubbock, and similarly dumped her body in a suitcase.
Rodriguez's lawyers on Tuesday made a last-minute appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the execution, wherein they questioned the credibility of a medical examiner who testified at Rodriguez's trial about the fatal injuries suffered by Baldwin.
The Supreme Court rejected the appeal less than 30 minutes before his scheduled death.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Associated Press contributed to this report.