Texas executes former jailer for child's murder

HUNTSVILLE, Texas, Aug 4 (Reuters) A former jailer was executed by lethal injection for the 1997 murder of his girlfriend's 3-year-old son.

William Wyatt Jr., 41, was condemned for holding a plastic bag over Damien Willis' head until the boy suffocated in a Texarkana, Texas, apartment on February. 4, 1997.

Prosecutors said Wyatt, then an officer at the county jail in Texarkana, murdered Willis to cover up a brutal sexual assault on the boy. Wyatt originally said Willis accidentally drowned in the bathtub. Days after being arrested, he confessed to the assault and the murder.

Wyatt has since claimed his confession was coerced and that he is only guilty of not watching Willis carefully while he was in the bathtub.

Yesterday, in a final statement while strapped to a gurney in the death chamber, Wyatt thanked his family and then protested his innocence.

''I would also like to say to Damien's family, I did not murder your son,'' he said. ''I did not do it. I just want you to know that. I did not murder Damien and I would ask for all of your forgiveness and I will see all you soon.'' Wyatt was the 17th person executed in Texas this year and the 372nd put to death since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982, six years after the US Supreme Court lifted a national death penalty ban, totals that lead the nation.

Wyatt did not request a final meal.

Texas has nine executions scheduled for the rest of 2006, with three of those set for August.

REUTERS VJ RK0535