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• Texas inmate set to die for rape-slaying during robbery

August 15, 2007 (Huntsville, TX) – A condemned prisoner whose threats toward corrections officers restricted his already limited movements on Texas death row was headed for execution Wednesday evening for the rape and fatal shooting of a woman during a break-in at her home nearly 10 years ago.

Kenneth Parr, 27, was barely an adult, just days past his 18th birthday, when authorities said he and a younger half brother kicked in the door of the Bay City home of 30-year-old Linda Malek, robbed the place, then raped her and shot her in the head while she was in bed with her two young children.

Parr would be the 20th condemned inmate executed this year in Texas and the first of five set to die over the next 15 days. He'd also be the 399th convicted killer put to death in the state since Texas resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982.

Lawyers for Parr appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the execution, arguing that his death date was set improperly and that the state's lethal injection method was unconstitutionally cruel.

Parr already was on probation after juvenile burglary and assault convictions when he was arrested for the slaying of Malek just days after his 18th birthday. The woman and her children lived across the street from the apartment where Parr and his brother were staying with a friend.

After convicted of her murder and sent to death row, prison records show he continued to pile up disciplinary infractions like refusing orders and not following rules, creating disturbances and possessing weapons.

In the weeks preceding his execution, Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials took the rare step of putting him off-limits for media interviews because of security concerns.

"He's been adamant that he would like to harm staff members before he's executed," department spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said. "He flipped out when he found out we weren't going to do media stuff."

Steven Reis, the Matagorda County district attorney who prosecuted Parr, said the prisoner's history since being locked up was no surprise and shows jurors were correct to give him a death sentence.

"He is the clearest example of how even death row inmates are dangerous," Reis said. "Many people suggest that once a defendant is incarcerated for life, they pose no danger to society. This misleading statement presumes that the people who work within the prisons are not members of society, which is preposterous.

"Those people are at risk from the likes of Parr."

The Jan. 21, 1998, slaying was the only homicide that year in Matagorda County, about 100 miles southwest of Houston. The timing -- just days after Parr's 18th birthday -- is significant because the U.S. Supreme Court has barred execution for those convicted of crimes committed when under 18.

Parr's lawyers raised the age issue in earlier appeals but lost.

Parr's younger half-brother, Michael Jiminez, also was convicted in the case and is serving a life sentence. He was 17 at the time. Court records show Parr has two other brothers in prison and that his mother also served time for forgery.

"He never had a chance," Stan McGee, one of Parr's trial lawyers, said.

At his trial, evidence shows he wrote a rap song about killing Malek and how he was planning to murder again.

"That was pretty devastating," McGee recalled.

Some of the items taken from Malek's home were found in the apartment where Parr and his brother were staying. Their fingerprints were found at the murder scene. DNA tied Parr to the rape. The murder weapon was hidden in an air conditioning vent at the apartment.

After the intruders left, Malek's 8-year-old daughter called her grandparents to report the attack. She later would testify at Parr's capital murder trial.

"I cringe as I imagine that young mother as she begged her rapists to spare her children," Reis said.

A witness testified Jiminez told her he and Parr, who did not testify, shot Malek and planned to kill the children but the rusty gun jammed.

On a Web site devoted to this case, Parr complained of "grave misjustices," including what he said was a mistaken conviction.

The next Texas inmate scheduled to die is Johnny Ray Conner, facing injection next week for the shooting death of Houston grocery store owner Kathyanna Nguyen during an attempted holdup in 1998.

-The Associated Press