Larry Swearingen: Texas executes man for 1998 murder of student

Texas has executed a man convicted of the murder of a 19-year-old student, which he maintained he did not commit.

Larry Swearingen, 48, was executed by lethal injection for the 1998 murder of Melissa Trotter.

He said authorities ignored evidence that would have exonerated him.

His last words were: “lord forgive them. they don’t know what they are doing.”

Prosecutors have said they stand by the “mountain of evidence” used to convict him.

Prior to his death on Swearingen had received five stays of execution in the past two decades.

He was found guilty in 2000 of the abduction, rape and murder of Ms Trotter, who disappeared in December 1998 and was found dead in a densely wooded area in the Sam Houston national forest in Texas 25 days later.