Texas executes man for crime spree that left four dead, including baby

Reuters
James Bigby, who is scheduled to be put to death is shown in this photo released by Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Huntsville, Texas, U.S. on March 7, 2017.Courtesy Texas Department of Criminal Justice/Handout via REUTERS

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The state of Texas on Tuesday executed a man for launching a 1987 crime spree in which four people were killed, including a 4-month-old boy he drowned in a sink.

After more than 25 years on death row, James Bigby, 61, was put to death by lethal injection at the state's death chamber and pronounced dead at 6:31 p.m. CDT, a prisons official said.

The execution was the 542nd in Texas since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, the most of any state. It was also the sixth this year in the United States, and four of those execution have taken place in Texas.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz, Editing by G Crosse and Peter Cooney)