AUSTIN – Texas on Tuesday executed a convicted killer
who repeatedly shot a city code officer inspecting piles of garbage at the
death row inmate’s former home, a department of criminal justice official said.

Adam Ward, 33, was pronounced dead after receiving a
lethal injection at the state’s death chamber in Huntsville. The execution was
the fifth this year in Texas, which has executed more offenders than any state
since the United States Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

Lawyers for Ward had filed an appeal to halt the
execution, arguing he suffered from severe mental illness.

The US Supreme Court denied the appeal about two hours
before the execution.

“The crime for which Mr. Ward received the penalty
of death was an act inextricable from the delusions and paranoia fed by his
disabling bipolar disorder,” lawyers for Ward said in a petition filed
with the court.

In 2005 in Commerce, about 65 miles northeast of Dallas,
city code officer Michael Walker was called out to look at a heap of rubbish
that Ward and his father hoarded inside and outside their home, the Texas Attorney
General’s office said.

The family also hoarded guns, it said.

When Walker approached the property taking pictures of
its perimeter, Ward sprayed the city inspector with a hose he had been using to
wash his car, and then argued with him, the office said.

Ward then went back in the house to get a gun, and shot
Walker, who was 46.

“After Walker fell, Ward shot him again at close
range. Walker sustained nine gunshot wounds in total and died,” the office
said.

Ward confessed to killing Walker shortly thereafter,
explaining he believed the city was after his family and was going to tear down
their home, it said.

– Reuters