(From both the Houston Chronicle and Dallas Morning News)

REPUTED DRUG SMUGGLER CAMACHO EXECUTED FOR '88 MURDERS

HUNTSVILLE (AP) -- Reputed marijuana smuggler Genaro Ruiz Camacho was
executed Wednesday for the execution-style slaying of a Dallas-area man who
unwittingly stumbled into a kidnap plot that also left a woman and her
3-year-old son fatally shot.

Camacho, 43, was pronounced dead at 7:49 p.m., nine minutes after a dose of
lethal chemicals was released into his arms.

Camacho had seemed cheerful while greeting witnesses he invited to watch
him die. He called two daughters and a former wife by name and repeatedly
said he loved them.

"I'll be with you," he said. "I'll be waiting for you in heaven. I love you
all."

Camacho uttered a brief prayer in Spanish, then said, "That's all I have to
say." He turned to a window through which his daughter watched.

"I'm going home, baby. Bye-bye," he said.

As the drugs took effect, Camacho coughed once, gasped twice and stopped
moving.

The execution was delayed nearly two hours because of last-minute appeals
and difficulties locating suitable veins in Camacho's arms for the
injection. Prison officials said his drug history contributed to the problem.

Camacho was the 12th convicted killer to be executed this year in Texas.
Last year, a record 37 executions were carried out.

The three murders in 1988 were among at least five slayings authorities
linked to Camacho, described as a mid-level drug dealer who brought
marijuana into Texas from Mexico and who used murder to keep people in line.

One of the five killings was the dismembering of a Dallas topless dancer
who was beaten to death, had her head run over twice by a car and then had
her body parts fed into a tree shredder, according to accomplices who
testified against him.

"He was such a vicious murderer he scared off his own people," Sue Korioth,
an assistant district attorney in Dallas, said. "I think he enjoyed killing
these people."

Camacho was condemned for the May 20, 1988, shooting of David Wilburn, 25,
who walked into the home of a neighbor, Sam Wright. What he didn't know was
Camacho and two other men, with a fourth man standing guard outside, had
burst into the Pleasant Grove home minutes earlier to collect a heroin debt.

Wilburn was ordered to the floor and shot immediately in the back of the
head. As Wright fled, a woman in the house, Evellyn Banks, 31, and her
3-year-old son, Andre, were abducted by Camacho's group and shot three days
later, buried in a shallow grave in Johnston County, Okla., and covered
with kitty litter.

One of Camacho's companions told how his boss ordered the baby shot
repeatedly because the child continued to make noises after the initial shot.

The two bodies were found about three months later. Camacho by then had
fled to Mexico. He was arrested more than a year later as he tried to cross
back into Texas.

In an interview a week ago, he contended his arrest was the result of a
payoff between U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration operatives and Mexican
police, that he had no role in any murders and was no drug kingpin with a
lucrative smuggling business, as described by authorities.

"If I was, I would have hired the best attorneys around and I guarantee you
I wouldn't be in here," he said from a cage in the death row visiting area.

But he said he was resigned to dying.

"I'm ready for it, we've made all the preparations. I can't do much about
it," he said. "It's a new beginning."

Checked-by: Pat Dolan