Texas to execute man who killed three boys as they slept

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - Texas is scheduled to execute a man on Wednesday convicted of fatally shooting three sleeping teenagers in Amarillo in 1998.

John Balentine, 43, would be the eighth person executed in Texas this year and the 28th in the United States. He has twice been granted stays of execution - by the U.S. Supreme Court last year on the day he was scheduled for lethal injection, and by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in 2009 on the day before his execution date.

He appealed to the Supreme Court after the appeals court on Tuesday refused to reconsider his request for a stay.

In January 1998, Balentine entered the home of his ex-girlfriend and shot her brother, Mark Caylor, Jr., 17, and two other boys, Kai Geyer, 15, and Steven Watson, 15, while they were sleeping. All three boys were shot in the head with a .32 automatic pistol.

Balentine had broken up with Misty Caylor and moved out of the house a few weeks earlier, according to court documents. Caylor's brother had threatened Balentine because of how he treated her, court documents said.

Balentine confessed to the murders after his arrest in Houston, according to the Texas Attorney General's Office.

(Reporting By Corrie MacLaggan; Editing by Greg McCune and Stacey Joyce)