HUNTSVILLE, Texas—A Texas death row inmate who argued that his conviction was based on junk science was executed Wednesday for the abduction, rape and killing of a suburban Houston community college student more than 20 years ago.
Larry Swearingen, 48, received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in Huntsville for the December 1998 killing of 19-year-old Melissa Trotter. She 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 (110 kilometers) north of Houston.
