Texas set to execute serial killer

CHICAGO: Texas was set Wednesday to execute a confessed serial killer who raped, tortured and murdered three girls and a young woman in the 1980s and 90s.

Anthony Shore's oldest murder victim was 20 and the youngest was nine when they were killed between 1986 and 1995 in Houston. 

He confessed to luring his victims into a car, where he raped, tortured and murdered them, and discarded their bodies in public places.

A fifth victim, a 14-year-old he raped in her own home, managed to escape as he was choking her. The crime remained unsolved for almost a decade, because Shore had covered his face during the assault.

Now 55 years old, Shore was known as the "Tourniquet Killer" during his crime spree, because he strangled his victims to death with an improvised compression device consisting of rope and a tool used for tightening it.

For one of his victims, he used a toothbrush. For another, a bamboo stick.

Shore was caught in 2003 after police matched DNA found on the body of one of his victims, 20-year-old Maria Del Carmen Estrada, to a sample he had submitted after being convicted of molesting his two daughters.

He confessed to all four murders and the rape, and during his trial asked for the death penalty.

In appeals, Shore´s lawyers argued he should be spared execution, because he was brain damaged by a car accident in the early 1980s. But judges have rejected all appeals.