Texas executes man for gang-related slaying

Larry Davis is seen in undated prison photos.

DALLAS (Reuters) - Texas executed a convicted killer by lethal injection on Thursday for the gang-related 1995 murder of a man during a robbery in his home.

Larry Davis, 40, was condemned to die for the murder of Michael Barrow in the Texas panhandle town of Amarillo. Barrow's parents found his body in his home after he had been beaten and stabbed to death.

Four accomplices received lesser sentences for the slaying and prosecutors maintained Davis was the leader of the pack who directed the attack so his friends could earn a coveted gang tattoo.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Davis was the fourth person executed in Texas and the 16th nationwide since the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a temporary moratorium on capital punishment in April when it rejected a challenge to the three-drug cocktail used in most lethal injections.

Davis was executed at the death chamber in Huntsville, Texas. In his last statement, he said: "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. It is finished."

His last meal request was a hamburger with cheese and jalapenos and a vanilla shake.

Texas is America's most active death penalty state. Davis was the 409th inmate executed in Texas since 1982, when the state resumed executions six years after the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment.

Texas has 15 more executions scheduled for this year and one early in 2009.

(Reporting by Ed Stoddard; Editing by Peter Cooney)